


The Perils of Poor Communication

by FailingTheTest



Series: The Shakeup [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Skye | Daisy Johnson, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Minor Original Character(s), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-09-16 16:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 26,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9279881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FailingTheTest/pseuds/FailingTheTest
Summary: Steve Rogers and the other fugitive Avengers are about to get off the sidelines, but they don't know all the players in the game.





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, handwritten then revised on entry. Typos are likely.

### Briefings

Wanda Maximoff sat on the edge of the seedy motel bed, eyes shut and statue-still. Four other people were scattered around the room watching her, patiently waiting.

After a few tense minutes, she relaxed and opened her eyes. “We’re clear. Nobody within a hundred meters took notice of any of us,” Wanda informed the others. “Except for the maid - _she_ is very interested in Sam’s backside,” she smiled at the last person who’d arrived, barely ten minutes earlier.

Ignoring the chuckles - but smiling a little herself - Natasha Romanoff continued tapping at her phone for a few more seconds before giving her own report. “According to the hacker’s programs, nobody is monitoring us electronically. We’re good.”

Steve Rogers suppressed a frown at Natasha’s continued refusal to refer to Skye by name, but refrained from opening _that_ can of worms again. He cleared his throat, ready to get down to business, only to be interrupted by Barton.

“I know you trust these programs Steve, but are we sure they’re giving us accurate information?” the archer asked, then blinked as another question occurred to him. “Also, how can we be sure this ‘secure network’ isn’t reporting our location?”

Wilson grinned at Clint and laughed, “What? You have a problem with the SkyeNet?”

“I wish you wouldn’t call it that,” Steve muttered; he still couldn’t figure out why those movies were so popular. Raising his voice, he answered Barton. “From experience, I’d say the toolkit is solid; I’ve been using it for a couple of months without a repeat of California.” He paused to look at the archer, waiting until he got a nod before continuing.

“As to the network tracking us ...” Rogers trailed off, handing the discussion to Natasha with a look. The former assassin had spent more time using that part of the software than he had.

Romanoff rolled her eyes, but reluctantly backed him up. “The network is solid, also. There are some high-end obfuscation routines running on this system. I threw the best worms I could get my hands on at it; not one so much as returned a ping.” She shook her head, adding, “I was only trying to get a location so I could finally _meet_ the girl. I still need to thank her for helping Steve.”

Barton grunted acceptance of his partner’s reasoning, then started to bring up another objection. Thankfully, Wanda spoke up first. “We should accept the programs as good until we have evidence otherwise,” she said, sending a mild glare at Clint. He made a face but kept his mouth shut. Turning to Steve, the Sokovian continued, “Now, Captain. Why are we here?”

“You’re here - all of you are here - because Natasha thinks I need backup.” He smiled wryly before adding, “Or at least more eyes to keep me out of trouble.”

“I don’t think that’s what she asked, Rogers,” Barton snapped.

“True. When Skye intervened in that parking lot, she saved me from being captured - or worse. _I’m_ here to ... ‘pay it forward’.” He glanced around the room, making sure the others got the reference. Satisfied they understood, he continued. “I’ve exchanged a few messages with Skye over the last six weeks, and she’s made it clear why she stepped in: she has a big problem with putting enhanced or powered people on lists - or locking them up if they won’t cooperate.”

Steve glanced over at the nearly-silent hiss of Wanda’s indrawn breath, then continued speaking when she gave him a tiny head shake. “Skye seems particularly concerned about these ‘Inhumans’ that have been popping up recently.” Reading between the lines of their correspondence, he’d gotten the impression that the hacker felt a responsibility to help Inhumans in particular, though he didn’t have a clue why she had declined his offered assistance.

Clint grunted irritably when Steve paused, muttering “Get to the point, already.”

“We’re here - sixty miles from Arcolin, Kansas, on a Saturday night - because I’ve been cross-checking the hacker’s data with my own sources,” Natasha put in. “Everything I could get an answer on matched up with her intel, but that’s not the point. One source assumed I was asking for Inhuman information in general, and forwarded a rumor about that building collapse in Oregon Tuesday night.” Sam, Clint, and Wanda were looking blankly at her, clearly wondering where this was going.

“According to my source, the ATCU believes an Inhuman is responsible, and has intel pointing to Arcolin as a probable location to ... acquire ... that individual,” Romanoff concluded.

Steve cut off the tripartite protest about chasing rumors before it could get moving. “The ATCU is treating this as solid; two separate sources confirm a multi-team ATCU op scheduled for tomorrow, in or near Arcolin.”

“How many people is ‘multi-team’?” Sam asked immediately.

“I don’t know about the ATCU, but with SHIELD that could be anywhere from a dozen, up to fifty agents,” Clint put in.

“And you wanted to do this _alone_?” Wanda demanded, fixing Steve with a withering glare. The soldier looked away, clearing his throat again - nervously, this time - but was saved from responding when Sam continued the argument.

“Even with the four of us to help, we’re still looking at ten-to-one odds here, worst case,” he pointed out mildly.

“I’ve seen worse,” Clint mused, staring off into space. His eyes suddenly regained focus as he shot a pointed look at Wilson. “Any chance we might reduce those odds before tomorrow?” the archer asked.

“If you’re asking about Lang, I wouldn’t count on it. I haven’t heard from him since the Raft.”

“We’ll try again to locate him after tomorrow,” Rogers said, taking back control of the conversation. “Five sets of eyes are better than just my one, and I’ll be glad for the help. Besides,” he admitted sheepishly, “the plan was to get a look at an ATCU operation, and maybe - _maybe_ \- intercede if it looked like their target needed help.”

“No ‘maybe’ about it,” Sam snorted. “You’d jump in if it was fifty-to- _one_. I’ll have to keep you out of trouble.”

Steve didn’t bother arguing the point - it was probably true, after all. A quick glance at his friends told him the former SHIELD operatives were up for it as well; only Wanda seemed worried. After studying his face for a few seconds the Sokovian sighed minutely and nodded.

“We’d better get some sleep. I’ll take the first watch,” Rogers volunteered.

* * *

“How much longer are they gonna make us wait?” the SHIELD agent groused to his buddies as the three of them stood along a wall in the Playground’s largest conference room. “I got better things to do on a Saturday night,” he amplified when Sullins shot him a frown.

“No you don’t, Roth,” countered Clayton. “If we weren’t in here, we’d still be running drills - along with everybody else in this room.” Now Clayton took a turn frowning at the former SEAL. “I’d much rather stand around for forty minutes than get my ass kicked by Agent May ... again.”

“I wonder what the point of all the variations is,” Sullins mused quietly. “Whenever we get close to actually catching her, the brass throw in a new wrinkle next run.”

“No kidding,” Roth agreed vigorously, taking the Marine’s last sentence as a complaint. “Agent May doesn’t need an ICER or for our comms to not work - that’s just stacking the deck,” he concluded sourly.

“In the Corps we called that ‘good training’,” Clayton chuckled, then cut off the rest of his response as the door opened to admit two more agents. “I think we’re about to find out what’s going on,” he muttered with a slight nod at the just-arrived Director.

Melinda May stood silently at the director’s right, mask-like face watching the three tactical teams gathered for the briefing. The agents had been chattering away when she and Coulson entered, but were quickly quieting now.

“We’ve got a lead - solid intel, really - on an Inhuman who refuses to sign the Sokovia Accords,” Coulson stated without preamble. May watched the assembled agents’ reactions, noting the few who appeared _curious_ rather than _blank_. Even most of the curious sort were still new enough to be unused to Coulson’s informal style of command, and so simply waited for the director to continue.

Agent Piper, having been at the Playground nearly five whole months, was practically an old hand. “Since when do we enforce the Accords?” she asked after a few beats of silence from Coulson.

“Since the U.N. botched their attempt to bring in Captain Rogers back in May,” he answered with a small smirk. Melinda pretended not to notice the muttered trio of curses that drifted in from the fringe. This time the pause was a mere couple seconds before the director got back to the business at hand.

“We have a location and a probable date; surveillance teams are already on the ground, scouting the town of Arcolin, Kansas.” The display behind him lit up with a map and some satellite imagery of the largish town. Emboldened by the positive response to Piper’s query, one of the newer agents spoke up with his own question.

“And we’ve been practicing to bring in the Inhuman once the advance teams confirm the target’s presence?”

“Basically,” Coulson agreed with a slight nod, though something in his voice set Melinda’s teeth on edge. The way a couple dozen pairs of eyes swiveled in her direction had her tightening her jaw to suppress a frustrated groan; Phil was giving her the floor ahead of the agreed schedule.

Taking a deep, unobtrusive breath, May went straight to the point. “You were drilling against me because we’ll be going after one of our own,” she told the group of newbies as levelly as she could manage. The images of Arcolin vanished from the display, to be replaced by a standard - though somewhat redacted - SHIELD agent datafile. “I was her Supervising Officer; she learned escape and evasion from me.”

Coulson let the startled silence linger for a handful of seconds before clearing his throat. “Those of you who haven’t met her: This,” he waved at the image behind him, “is Daisy Johnson.”

May let herself relax minutely as the tactical agents returned their attention to Phil. She tuned out his bare-bones rundown of Daisy’s skills and abilities, and tried to keep from frowning as she contemplated - again - all the ways this could go badly. Agents hurt, Daisy still on the run. _Daisy_ hurt, or worse. 

Her mood wasn’t helped by the lingering sense of unease she’d been dealing with ever since the techs had found snippets of Daisy’s code on a damaged drive from the destroyed building. Something felt off about the whole situation, starting with the four dead bodies that had been pulled from the rubble; May was almost certain the examination would show they were _not_ killed in the collapse.

She forced herself to change gears with a mental head shake. Picking at a mystery without any new evidence wasn’t going to help the op succeed. A glance back at the display showed Coulson had moved on to the planned timeline for tomorrow; May had to turn away quickly when the date registered.

 _Sunday, July 3_. That made tonight ... _Happy birthday, Daisy,_ May thought, struggling to stop a sad smile from breaking free. _One hell of a surprise party coming._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This first chapter took the better part of a month, between rewrites and revisions. Almost cut it entirely; still not sure it works.


	2. Contact

### Identification

Colonel James Rhodes entered the Oval Office and crossed to stand before the Resolute desk, exoskeletal powered leg braces whining faintly. He braced to attention and saluted. “Colonel Rhodes reporting as ordered, Mister President.”

President Matthew Ellis stood quickly and walked around the antique desk. “Oh knock it off, Rhodey! It was an invitation, not an order.”

Rhodes dropped the salute with a smile, giving the offered hand a firm shake. “Not to sound suspicious, but was there a reason for that invitation?” he asked warily, though the smile never left his face.

“No, not at all! Just wanted to touch base, see how you’re doing,” Ellis began, before quirking a wry smile at the Air Force officer. “Though now that you’re here I might as well ask if you’ll be able to participate in the festivities tomorrow - officially, I mean. Having the War Machine do a flyover and march in the parade were both a big hit last year.”

Rhodes nodded quickly. “I don’t see any reason why not, although they’ll have to make a few adjustments to the suit out at Andrews beforehand.” He tapped the brace on his right leg, shrugging slightly.

The President frowned thoughtfully. “What sort of adjustment? I’d have thought Stark would be done with that sort of thing weeks ago. He designed both the suit and the braces, didn’t he?”

“Maybe I should have said ‘readjust’, Mister President. The suit is currently fitted for the latest candidate in the Variable Threat Response succession trials,” Rhodes explained with a mental sigh. While it was probably a good idea to pass the torch, he’d miss the pure freedom feeling of flying without an airplane. Shaking off the somber thought, he continued, “Besides, these -” he tapped the brace again, “- aren’t Stark tech. Transia built and delivered them a couple weeks ago; Tony still hasn’t stopped sulking about somebody else having better tech than him.” He grinned, remembering the row when he’d told Stark that he preferred the other company’s system.

Ellis frowned again, muttering, “Transia? Why does that sound familiar?”

Rhodes shrugged again. “I’m not sure, sir. I’d never heard of them myself. General Talbot, of all people, recommended I take a look at them.”

“Glenn Talbot?” At Rhodey’s nod Ellis gave a small snort. “That would be it, then. Transia had a run-in with the ATCU a while back. The board sold out to Hydra and got themselves killed in the bargain.” Now the President shook his head. “Glad to see the whole thing didn’t come crashing down,” he added absently.

“No argument from me, sir,” Rhodes responded lightly, wondering what had distracted the other man. Seeing the President’s furrowed brow and unfocused gaze, he decided to stay quiet. _Not my business._

Abruptly, Ellis stood up straight and turned to face Rhodes fully. “How quickly could you get the suit here?”

“Why do you ask, Mister President?”

“The ATCU has a rather large operation planned for later today, to try and bring in a powerful Inhuman. While I’m sure they will do their best, I’m afraid Talbot’s recent reports have been a bit ...” he trailed off, searching for the right word.

“Slanted, sir?” Rhodes supplied a guess.

“Not ... quite,” Ellis demurred. “Maybe ‘incomplete’ would be closer. I’d like you to fly out there and observe; I know the Accords won’t let you act without authorization, but surely this wouldn’t count.”

“Probably not, sir, but you can probably count on somebody making a stink about it,” Rhodey replied, thinking of the Russian representative to the Accords committee. “However,” he grinned evilly, “if you were to send the VTR candidate - who has _not_ signed the Accords - then you can cut that complaint off at the knees.”

_And I get to send another possible replacement on an unplanned exercise. In the middle of a holiday weekend,_ the Colonel thought with a mental smirk.

* * *

Though he didn’t know it, Rhodey’s attempt to annoy the current VTR candidate had in fact had the opposite effect. As she rolled the suit through the maneuver that, in a fixed-wing craft, would be called a wing-over, she had to restrain a wild, gleeful whoop.

_And I thought a contested gun-run in a Hawg was the most fun a girl could have in the Air Force_ , she thought with a grin. A quick check of the nav display put her less than two hundred klicks from the ATCU’s ops area in Kansas - time to call in. “Andrews, Iron Eye approaching exercise area, cruising at twenty thousand feet; ETA ten minutes. Any new instructions for me? Over.”

“ _Negative, Iron Eye_ ,” Colonel Rhodes’ voice responded. “ _Objective is to observe the ATCU operation_.” It only took Rhodes ten seconds of silence to realize he wasn’t going to get a response. “ _Since you’ve obviously gotten the hang of the flight systems - you made excellent time - we should try something else. Let’s see how you handle the sensor suite: take her down for a closer look_ ,” he ordered. “ _Andrews out_.”

After a couple minutes consideration, she decided to land before attempting a full sensor sweep. The captain had taken to the flying part like a duck to water, but hadn’t managed to master the sometimes-wonky interface for more complex tasks. _Holing a civilian structure less than three weeks into the testing would probably hurt my chances, _she mused, aiming for a conveniently open space roughly in the center of town.__

* * *

Natasha sipped her iced coffee, sheltering from the mid-afternoon sunshine beneath the café awning. She glanced around, counting down the seconds until -

“ _Check in_ ,” Rogers’ terse command came over the tiny receiver in her ear. _Like clockwork,_ she thought sardonically.

“Nothing here at the square,” she reported after lifting her phone to her ear as a prop.

“ _Barely even any traffic in this town_ ,” Barton groused from his perch a half-dozen blocks away.

“ _No sign of government agents or extra-dangerous Inhumans_ ,” Sam quipped. He occupied a rooftop clear across town, eyes up high for Cap and Wanda.

“ _Park is clear as well_ ,” Steve said calmly, completing the quarter-hourly ritual.

Clint spoke up again not three minutes later. “ _This is a wild goose chase. If the ATCU were here we’d have seen them by now. Remember that nationwide manhunt last year? Alerts everywhere about that guy, the Inhuman. Not exactly subtle_.”

“ _Lincoln Campbell was his name, the man they were after_ ,” Rogers supplied instantly. “ _They’ve been much quieter lately, especially since Talbot took over as director_.”

“ _Barton’s got a point_ ,” Wilson put in. “ _Talbot’s got a rep for getting the job done, but he’s also a loudmouth who doesn’t care what toes get stepped on in the process_.”

“ _Makes it even more likely the whole thing’s a bust_ ,” Clint argued. “ _I think it’s about time we got outta Dodge_.”

Natasha rolled her eyes and kept quiet, tuning out the semi-hourly bickering. This had happened every other check-in since noon, and though Steve had so far refused to call it a day, she thought Barton’s arguments might be winning him over. Slowly. The soldier might even call the operation by sunset, at this rate.

* * *

She put the suit down with a bit more flourish than she’d intended. Slightly misjudging her approach vector had led to rather more radical last-second course change to avoid cratering. _I know Stark still pulls a three-point landing a quarter of the time, but he’s not a pilot,_ she mentally growled at herself. The captain stood and turned to scan the square, discovering a small - but growing - crowd of onlookers approaching. _Maybe landing wasn’t such a hot idea after all._

She quickly set up a basic sensor sweep, then went to tell the civilians to keep clear - only to freeze when she couldn’t find the option to activate the external speakers.

Before she’d managed to do more than back out of the - obviously incorrect - subset of commands, she noticed a woman pushing through the crowd, headed right for the suit.

As soon as she reached the armor, the woman turned to address the curious onlookers. “All right folks, nothing to see here. Just an Air Force training exercise that’s having a bit of a technical issue. No pictures or video, please. Step back, give the colonel some space,” the newcomer finished pleasantly.

The captain blinked inside the helmet as the civilians actually began to disperse - or at least spread out a bit. Before she even got started sorting the half-dozen questions that short speech spawned for her, the woman had spun back around and walked past the suit, signaling _follow me_ with a quick hand gesture.

When the officer moved to do just that, her self-appointed spokeswoman flashed an ID folder, complete with badge. _That explains why the mob listened to her, anyway._

“Agent Linda Avery, ATCU,” the woman said by way of introduction. “What the hell are you playing at, Colonel Rhodes? You may have just blown the whole damn op.” Avery delivered the lines with blank face and level voice, the way the pilot’s worst ass-chewings had always gone down, and the officer felt herself coming to attention in response before the incorrect name registered.

Giving up on the external speaker controls, the captain triggered the command to raise the faceplate. “It’s Danvers, actually. Captain Carol Danvers, USAF.”

“They already picked a replacement pilot for the War Machine?” Avery asked. “How’d I miss that news?”

“I’m actually just the current candidate,” Danvers demurred. “War Machine is the Colonel’s handle, by the way; they might hang the Iron Patriot name on the program again, once they pick a pilot.”

“They wouldn’t just use your handle? If you’re selected, I mean,” the agent asked curiously.

“God I hope not. I’ve hated mine since I got tagged with it in flight school,” the captain groused. _I’d still like to sucker punch that sarcastic asshole instructor; one bad sim and I’m ‘Miss Marvel’ my whole career._

The agent waited a moment, then shook her head slightly when Danvers didn’t elaborate. “Getting back on topic: Why is the Air Force here?” Avery glanced past the suit at the milling crowd, indicated the officer should follow again then started walking away.

The pair had nearly reached the edge of the square before Avery paused, gave the civilians an assessing look, then faced the suit with a raised eyebrow. Carol took a moment to check on the crowd herself, not wanting to run somebody over in the heavy armor. The mob was mostly giving them space, but she was glad there wasn’t much space between her and the building behind.

“President Ellis sent me,” the officer explained. When Avery only frowned slightly, Carol elaborated. “He wanted an observer on hand for the operation; one that could potentially lend a hand if necessary.” The agent’s first reaction was a deeper frown, but after a few seconds she started pacing a short circuit, parallel to the building and between the suit and the crowd.

Danvers watched the other woman walk for maybe thirty seconds, then decided to take the opportunity to check in. She dropped the faceplate, pointing to the ear area to indicate _communicating_ , and turned away to call in. “Andrews, Iron Eye is on the ground. Sensor sweep in progress. Are you getting the take? Over.”

“ _Negative, Captain_ ,” came Colonel Rhodes’ quick reply. “ _You might want to double-check your settings; we’re getting a blank feed here, over_.”

Frowning slightly inside the helmet, Carol ran the first-level diagnostic routine for the sensors. A quick handful of seconds, and the suit reported all sensors nominal; with frown deepening towards a scowl, she flipped the display to a direct readout of the sensors themselves. What should have been an audio, video, and electromagnetic composite was instead a total blank.

_I may still be new to this thing, but even I know that’s not right,_ Danvers thought. She started to report the apparent malfunction to the colonel, but was interrupted by the man himself.

“ _Captain, we’ve got General Talbot on the line. He’s requesting you make yourself scarce while we cobble up a comm link with the ATCU surveillance teams on the ground, over_.”

Carol felt her face go blank as a possibility occurred to her. She turned slowly back to the other woman, still pacing and glancing around occasionally. “Andrews, please ask the General if Agent Avery has reported our contact, over.” It had barely been five minutes since she’d landed the suit, but for an agency as plugged-in as the ATCU, that was more than long enough to pass the word up the chain.

Especially since that had apparently happened, with a _real_ agent making the report.

Avery apparently noticed something off about Danvers - stance too rigid, just a touch too immobile, something - because she abruptly stopped pacing and faced the armored officer directly.

Carol had no trouble operating the speakers this time, triggering the proper command while cuing the suit’s less-lethal weapons to lock onto the impostor. “Who are you, and how the hell are you blocking my recording functions?”

Avery froze for perhaps a half-second, then raised both hands in a placating gesture: palms forward, arms shoulder-width apart and nearly shoulder-high. “Let’s not do anything hasty,” the false agent started to say.

Captain Danvers ignored the plea, and triggered her comm circuit to report the capture. Unfortunately, she forgot to switch off the external speakers before doing so. She only got as far as “Andrews, this is Miss Mar-” before an incredibly powerful shockwave slammed her - suit and all - back into the building behind her.


	3. Novice Plan

### Death Dealer

Wanda Maximoff sat quietly, eyes roaming the park while she propped her head up with a bracing elbow planted firmly on the small table she shared with Steve Rogers. A bare handful of minutes had passed since the team’s last scheduled check-in, and already the soldier seemed to be getting restless.

She took a sip of her tea, grimacing to find it lukewarm. A quick glance revealed the coffee cart hadn’t moved from it’s spot near the park exit; maybe she’d buy a fresh cup when the next station shift took them past. Wanda suppressed a sigh when she thought of how long they’d been in the open today. She might lack the finely-honed sense of paranoia that long-term association with SHIELD had instilled in some of her teammates, but this operation was beginning to feel ... off. Judging by his drumming fingers and tapping toe, it was getting to Steve, too.

“How long are we staying in this town, Captain?” she asked quietly.

“Until the ATCU makes their move,” he started, then paused as Wanda reached out and stilled his fingers. He looked down at her hand, then quirked a quick smile at her. “Sorry.” Steve took a breath and looked around before continuing. “I suppose we shouldn’t press our luck; one whole day with the five of us in a small area is probably getting there. We’ll be gone tonight, one way or the other.”

“I keep waiting for somebody to recognize me, from the Lagos coverage,” Wanda admitted quietly.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about that - Natasha did a good job on the disguises,” Steve responded lightly. “Besides,” he continued more seriously after a few seconds, “those reports got it wrong. All you did was jump in after I screwed up and let Rumlow detonate that bomb.”

“So you’ve said,” Wanda whispered as her eyes continued scanning the park.

“Hey, look at me,” Steve instructed gently. He waited until the young woman turned to face him before continuing. “I’ll keep saying it, as many times as I have to - there’s a limit to how much I’ll let you beat yourself up for saving my life.”

Wanda wanted to roll her eyes, to brush off the remark, but the conviction and sincerity in Steve’s blue eyes stopped her. Eventually, she nodded slightly. “As you say,” she conceded.

The pair resumed their quiet observation, Wanda lost in thought, Steve content to let let her think while he concentrated on the mission. Long minutes dragged past, comms stayed silent, and the next check-in crawled closer.

Wanda nearly fell off her chair when, without preamble, Natasha called in. “ _Guys, the War Machine just landed in the town square_.”

Willing her suddenly spiking heart rate back under control, the Sokovian looked over at Rogers and arched a questioning eyebrow.

He looked back at her for a bare second before nodding once, firmly. “We have to assume Rhodes knows we’re here. Time to get out of town,” he said on comms.

Steve stood up calmly, before offering a hand to help her up as Barton and Wilson confirmed the scatter order in their ears. Together, the two began strolling down the path, headed for the exit, Wanda’s hand on Steve’s elbow, listening intently as Romanoff described the scene in the square.

“ _Everybody’s up and moving here, mostly milling around but a good number are headed towards the older buildings at the other end of the square from me; that’s where the suit landed. Lot’s of phones out and in use, but not a lot of people leaving yet - I’ll wait a bit before I slip away_.”

“Keep us posted, Nat. Let us know when you get clear, or if you need any help,” Steve ordered conversationally. “That goes for the rest of you: check in when you get clear or if you need assistance, then head for the rendezvous.”

The duo exited the park, then started for the next waypoint on their evasion plan. Before they had moved a dozen paces down the street, Natasha spoke up with an update. “ _Rhodes just made contact with some sort of agent; female, plainclothes, flashed an ID folder at the gawkers_.” After a short pause, the spy resumed her description. “ _The colonel just followed Miss Agent to a spot a few meters back from the crowd; she appears somewhat displeased at Rhodey’s arrival_.”

“ _Maybe the woman is ATCU, and Rhodes got tasked as backup for the op_ ,” Wilson offered over the sound of his duffel bag zipping closed.

“ _You’re saying they sent the War Machine_ without _knowing about us_?” Barton asked incredulously. “ _This Inhuman must be bad news if they need help from a flying tank_.”

Wanda looked up at Steve as he abruptly slowed their pace. The near-scowl of concentration he wore meant she didn’t need to read his thoughts to know how much he wanted to resume mission that had brought them all here. She kept quiet, just matched his gait and made sure they didn’t run into anything while he argued with himself.

At last he shook his head, glanced around with a determined set to his jaw, and transmitted. “It’s too risky; keep your eyes open but continue bug-out.”

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Wanda murmured - off comms. Steve looked a question at her. “I know how much you wanted to help your friend,” she explained quietly, then nudged his elbow forward to get him to pick up the pace.

Again, the pair hadn’t gone ten yards when Natasha’s voice whispered in their earpieces. “ _I don’t know how, but I think the fed just put Rhodes through the front of a building_.”

After the collective _What?!_ outburst on comms, Clint was the first to chime in with the common theory. “ _So what are the odds that not-a-fed is the Inhuman the ATCU is coming for_?”

“ _Let’s not jump to conclusions_ ,” Sam countered instantly. “ _There’s all kinds of tech out there, this could be another Pym situation; or maybe_ -”

“ _It looks like she just climbed into the hole - followed the suit inside_ ,” Natasha interrupted. “ _What’s the call, Cap_?”

Wanda watched as Rogers stared in the direction of the square, evaluating the situation he couldn’t see. After a bare five seconds he turned away, squared his shoulders and started transmitting. “We don’t know enough about what’s going on, so -”

“So let me go find out,” she interjected, reacting to the frustration and sense of defeat she could sense bubbling away just below the soldier’s surface thoughts, reacting before he could finish the order to resume the retreat.

Steve blinked over at her for a heartbeat, then asked curiously, “What did you have in mind?”

* * *

Carol abruptly found herself face-down in the middle of a decrepit sales floor that had gained a decorative layer of rubbled brick. _Note to self: work on compensating for violent, unexpected low-altitude vector shifts,_ she thought bemusedly, pushing up off the aged tile floor.

Before she got the suit’s arms to full extension - and therefore before the elbows were able to lock - a massive weight seemed to land across her back, slamming the front of the suit back into the ground. The weight seemed to lift immediately, though Carol thought she heard the patter of debris falling around and on her afterwards.

Again, she started to rise - only to drop once more as a warning flashed briefly in the display, just before the entire system lost power.

Mentally running the checklist for the manual reboot procedure, Carol heard the armor-distorted voice of Agent Avery. “Sorry, Captain Danvers. Can’t have you blowing the operation.”

* * *

Sam shrugged his shoulders, resettling the wing suit before reaching up to adjust his goggles’ strap minutely. Unnecessary fiddling complete, he tapped his toe impatiently as he waited for the pre-flight diagnostic to finish.

 _This is nuts_ , he thought for the hundredth time. _Wanda’s lost it. How am I supposed to distract somebody that - somehow - put that flying tank Rhodey calls his suit through a brick wall?_ Further rehashing was cut short when his goggles’ display flashed the ‘System Ready’ alert. 

Sam took three quick steps to clear the awning and launched himself into the air. He was mildly surprised - and more than a little satisfied - at the calm, almost bored tone he managed when he reported in. “Falcon in the air. ETA under a minute.”

He reached the square barely thirty seconds later, then circled for another full minute, taking a good long look at the situation. Romanoff was easy to spot, standing maybe sixty yards from the smashed-in storefront, drifting on the fringes of a surprisingly large crowd of civilians. _Idiots are probably trying to get video._

It took a bit longer to locate Wanda; she wasn’t in the square at all. When Sam saw her rising from behind the damaged structure, he asked over comms: “Anybody leave the building?”

Natasha spoke up first, calm and concise. “ _Not through the hole or the door next to it; there has been some movement slightly visible from outside_.”

“ _There do not appear to be any other exits_ ,” Wanda chimed in. “ _Now would be a good time for your demonstration, Sam_ ,” she added, positioning herself so she could drop into the square without landing in sight of the hole.

Taking one last look around, Wilson settled on his next move. He dove for the deck, flying between the gawkers and his objective no more than five yards up. As the mob pulled away, he banked around and repeated the maneuver twice more before landing directly in front of the building - facing the crowd, a good fifty feet from the hole.

While his wings folded away into their pack, he held out his arms and loudly ordered the crowd: “Everybody needs to leave this area, right now!” Resolutely ignoring the itch between his shoulder blades, Sam started pacing a short line between bystanders and building, repeating his warning and keeping an eye on Natasha.

Finally the spy murmured “ _Movement_ ” over comms, and Wilson glanced over his shoulder before turning to fully face the woman who had just exited the roughly Rhodey-sized hole in the bricks.

“Is that our counterfeit fed?” he asked quietly as he studied the woman in question. Her wavy chestnut hair was loose, draped over the shoulders of a black scoop-neck babydoll tee; matching comfortable-looking denim provided slightly more protection for her legs. Sam was rather more interested in the light-weight tactical harness strapped over the tee; the spec-ops style quick-draw holster strapped to her right thigh was particularly concerning.

“ _Same hair_ ,” Natasha allowed. “ _Pretty sure the Death Dealer getup is new, though_.”

Sam had to admit the fingerless black elbow gloves were kinda goth. _Probably stuffed the other clothes into that bag,_ he thought grimly, trying not to dwell on the nasty sorts of tech that would fit in the leather courier bag in the woman’s left hand, and were surely now nestled in the handful of pouches on her web gear.

The probably-not-a-fed had only moved a handful of paces outside when she noticed Sam watching her, freezing for a split-second before continuing forward a few more steps. When she reached a spot about five yards clear of the debris behind her, the brunette stopped, wary gaze locked on the no-longer-in-hiding Avenger before her.

“Show time,” Wilson muttered to himself, before starting slowly toward the woman. The two were nearly a hundred feet apart, and the woman had to recognize him, but she wasn’t taking the - apparent - opportunity to run. There were a great many reasons he could think of for Not-a-fed to be nonchalantly waiting for him; a very large majority of those were the sort he’d label ‘trouble’.

It barely took thirty seconds to close the gap to around a dozen yards, which is when Sam noticed Wanda slowly dropping in a crimson cloud. He stopped advancing, squared his shoulders and crossed his arms, and continued being a distraction. “What did that building ever do to you?” he quipped - loudly, given the distance.

Via his goggles’ magnification, he easily caught the woman’s amused snort. “What do you care? Owner’s been dead a decade, town condemned the thing last year,” she answered clearly. Then her right hand dropped to hang loosely by her leg, “The Captain didn’t mention having more Air Force backup,” she added in a flat tone.

Now Sam blinked in confusion, wondering why the brunette was referencing Steve. He shook off the puzzle; Wanda’s landing might need a bit of cover. “Maybe we’ll ask him about that when he gets here,” Wilson offered, plastering a smile on his face as he watched his teammate touch down lightly.

Wanda crept forward, right hand rising as a slowly building red mass started to extend towards the jittery woman. When he saw the target’s shoulders tense slightly Sam took an abrupt step forward. _Just a few more seconds, don’t look behind you,_ he thought behind his fake grin.

Sam exhaled a small sigh of relief as Wanda’s arm abruptly straightened - then bit back a curse as the plan went sideways. The brunette suddenly pivoted, left foot flashing up to smack into Wanda’s upper chest with a dull thud. The Sokovian stumbled backwards, and only the brick wall behind her kept her from falling on her ass. The leather bag, released from the definitely-not-an-agent’s left hand before the kick, hadn’t even hit the ground when Sam found himself in the air and accelerating at Wanda’s attacker.

Even reacting as he had, before he consciously understood what had happened, Wilson was going to be too late. He hadn’t crossed half the remaining gap when he saw the pistol flash up out of its holster.

Wanda had barely begun to rebound off the hard brick when the weapon flashed a strange blue. Sam heard nothing over the rushing wind of his flight and the internal roar of rage that followed as his friend began to crumple.

He shifted trajectory minutely, aiming to take the brunette in the back, only to realize his target wouldn’t be there. She was dropping quicker than Wanda’s body, out of his path and onto the dubious cushioning of her leather satchel.

Finding himself still accelerating at the armor-spawned-hole, Sam instinctively adjusted his vector up and to the left - higher to allow space for the flip that would put feet to wall first, left to avoid the weakened part of the wall. While instinct took care of maneuver, higher function was looking ahead to taking down the shooter.

His intended target had other plans, however. In the split-second of immobility before legs coiled from impact could propel the Falcon back into the fight, he saw another blue-tinged flash. Darkness claimed him before his mind drew the line from flash to shot.


	4. Assessment

### Drawn from Memory

Natasha Romanoff had been cautiously working her way across the open square for nearly five minutes by the time Sam Wilson made his entrance. Wanda hadn’t asked for backup when she’d sketched her plan over the team’s comms, but long experience had set the former assassin drifting over to a spot less than thirty meters from the damaged building.

Crouched between a boring beigemobile and a garishly-colored econobox, she had an excellent vantage point from which to watch the impostor shred Wanda’s plan in a few, brutal seconds. On her feet and moving before Wilson had even bounced off the sidewalk, Romanoff called in a report as she ran. “Wanda and Sam are down, Status unknown. I’m moving in.”

Ignoring Steve and Clint’s admonitions that she should wait for them, Natasha closed the gap at a sprint, drawing her small automatic pistol from its holster at the small of her back. The brunette was crouched beside Wanda as Romanoff slid to a halt, directly behind her target - but well clear of the woman’s demonstrated kicking range. “Stand up. Show me your hands.”

The mystery woman complied, rising smoothly and slowly, arms extended just above waist height. This close, Romanoff could see that the elbow gloves were not just an attempt at fashion. In fact, they appeared to be an aramid weave with segments of a matte black metal or plastic covering much of the forearm, making them more armored gauntlets than fingerless gloves.

The woman glanced back over her shoulder after she stood, and Natasha almost blinked in surprise at the sudden spike of _almost_ -recognition. The intelligence analyst in her started racing down mental pathways, trying to put a name to the face Natasha had glimpsed; the field agent took careful note when the woman in her sights sighed quietly and visibly forced herself to relax tense shoulders. Putting aside speculation for the moment, Natasha took a breath to order the brunette away from her friends, only to be interrupted.

“First the Air Force, then the Falcon and Witch, now the _Black Widow_?” She let out a slightly hysterical laugh, then cut if off with a disbelieving shake of the head. “Today is definitely not going according to plan,” she muttered, and Natasha tried not to be offended that the woman didn’t seem to care there was a world-famous assassin with a weapon pointed at her back.

“You know who I am, but do you know my rep?” the ex-assassin asked lightly. “What I did before SHIELD?” The brunette tensed at the none-too-subtle threat, and Natasha let her finger slip down to rest on the trigger even as her lips twitched at her own reaction to feeling slighted. “We’re just going to wait right here for the rest of my team,” she explained calmly.

Romanoff’s putative captive stiffened still further, then took a deep breath and let her arms fall towards her sides, palms back towards Natasha. “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen,” the woman stated flatly. Natasha frowned slightly at the movement, allowing her finger to tighten on the trigger, prepared to apply that last erg of force necessary to put a bullet in her target.

She had barely registered a tingling in her hands when she lost the chance to apply that force. Her weapon seemed to _hum_ in her hand, but only for a split second before the trigger _jerked_ back under the minute pressure of her finger - then fell free from the handgun it had been connected to a moment before.

Dropping the now-useless weapon, Natasha launched herself at the woman in front of her, feinting left before striking right - she could not allow that pistol resting in its quick-draw holster to come into this. Her opponent ignored the feint, meeting the attack and deflecting it high before twisting left and away to open space between them.

The pair warily circled for a few moments, with Natasha edging between the brunette and her downed teammates. When her opponent gave her a tiny opening - brushing a few stray strands of hair from her face - Natasha was content to let it pass. Until she had a better idea of how the woman had put Rhodes through a wall, Romanoff didn’t want to push too hard. Better to wait and press the issue when Barton and Rogers could lend a hand.

A couple of seconds later - opponent’s hair properly under control once more - Natasha engaged, pressing the slightly taller woman with a series of rapid kicks, strikes, and feints. She wasn’t trying to injure the other woman, simply to delay her, distract her. The absurd ease with which the black-clad woman deflected those half-hearted attacks came as a mild surprise, however.

Delay and distract remained her primary objective, but now Natasha was also assessing her opponent’s skills as well. The ex-assassin hadn’t even had a sparring session this vigorous since the last time she’d worked out with Hill. _Come to think of it..._ Natasha tried one of her standard combinations; the brunette countered every component of the attack - _almost exactly how Maria would have done it_.

Romanoff let her body slip into a sort of trained autopilot as she considered that, still firing lightning-quick strikes and setting up for attempted takedowns. It only took a few seconds to come to a conclusion: _She’s SHIELD trained,_ Natasha admitted grudgingly, _but who trained her?_ Running down a mental list of SHIELD operatives she knew to be capable enough to have trained the other woman - while still _actively_ fighting - proved to be a bit too much distraction for even the Black Widow.

The kick was only slightly sloppy, delivered just fractionally slow and off-target, but ‘slightly’ was enough for the brunette to catch Natasha’s ankle. Both hands locked on the former spy’s leg, and the other woman smirked at Romanoff before shoving her backwards with a slightly breathless “My turn.”

If the woman’s defensive techniques were a clue to her SHIELD training, the utter ferocity of her attack eliminated virtually the whole of Romanoff’s mental list. Any further narrowing quickly became impossible, as an unrelenting barrage of kicks and strikes forced Natasha to focus her attention fully on her opponent.

_Most_ of her attention, rather, for a sliver of concentration went toward ticking off seconds, counting down until Rogers and Barton would be able to join the party.

An extremely tricky - and damnably familiar - combination of feints and strikes let the other woman get a hit in past Natasha’s guard, and her resulting grunt as her ribs took a solid thump nearly drowned out Clint’s voice in her ear.

“ _I’m at the square. Sixty seconds till I’m in position on the roof,_ ” the archer said, his steps echoing audibly as he ascended a stairwell.

“ _Almost there,_ ” Steve stated grimly. The slight strain in his voice when he added “ _Thirty seconds, max_ ,” was the only clue that he was running flat-out.

Now it was Natasha’s turn to smirk, thinking _Finally. Time to end this little dance._ A deft twist put some space between the combatants - just enough to let the Black Widow employ her signature takedown. The instant she got her thighs locked around the brunette’s head, Natasha felt the woman shifting, trying to relieve some of the pressure on her neck. It was a logical counter, a better response than ninety percent of the people Romanoff faced; Natasha simply adjusted the hold to keep the pressure on.

The sudden, vicious spike of pain that accompanied the hard-driven fist slamming into her kidney loosened Natasha’s hold and caused her to botch the landing. The pair collapsed in a tangled heap, and the brunette twisted free of the spy’s hold before she could recover from the dual shocks of the kidney shot and slamming into the concrete.

Instincts had Natasha rolling clear before the other woman could press her advantage, and she recovered to a defensive stance and found the brunette facing partially away, struggling to get her hair under control. The ex-assassin blinked in surprise as she watched the woman reach up and grab her long chestnut locks with both hands before yanking the wig off and tossing it to the ground, muttering a disgusted-sounding “Screw it.”

Hair now several shades darker and a few inches shorter, the brunette turned back toward Natasha, right hand moving down to grip her sidearm. When Romanoff finally got a clear look at her sparring partner sans bulky, obscuring wig, she recognized her immediately. They’d never met, never even spoken, but Steve Rogers had a near-photographic memory, and enough skill as an artist to accurately sketch the woman who’d rescued him from a U.N. goon squad.

* * *

Steve cleared the last row of buildings and entered the open square at a run, only to be greeted by the sight of Natasha and her opponent hitting the ground in a tangled mass of limbs. As he started towards the pair, he watched the mystery woman stand clear and discard her wig, never even glancing in his direction. The way the woman moved as she turned back to face Romanoff twigged something in his memory, but before he could even start trying to tug on that thread he saw her reach for weapon at her side.

He was still twenty yards away when he accelerated, trying to close before the dark-haired woman could get the sidearm in action. His serum-enhanced musculature allowed him to cover most of that gap faster than just about anybody on the planet; Steve only made it to fifteen feet before his target whipped around, left hand extended shoulder high and pointed directly at him.

He barely registered the fact that the hand was empty when a barely-visible shockwave slammed into his chest, tossing him through the air and sending him into an uncontrolled, bouncing tumble when he finally crashed back down.

* * *

The woman hadn’t drawn her weapon yet, and Romanoff wasn’t going to do anything to encourage it; Natasha maintained her stance, gathering herself to move when - if - the hacker gave her an opening. Steve’s arrival - and subsequent abrupt departure - provided the needed distraction. Exploding out of her defensive posture, the spy went for the pistol again, only to have the woman pivot back, still brandishing her left hand like a weapon.

Natasha didn’t fly nearly as far as the super-soldier had, but she hit the ground hard and found herself seriously out of breath - this time from the double whammy of the giant, invisible hand that had swatted her and the impact of landing flat on her back two meters from where she started.

* * *

Clint barreled up the last few steps, not slowing at all as he crashed into the building’s rooftop access door. The flimsy lock gave way so easily that the archer stumbled slightly, then headed for a vantage point overlooking the square, custom bow easily gripped in his left hand.

It took barely a second to take in the action below: Cap sliding to a halt, Nat renewing her attack on the black-clad not-a-fed. The sudden, short flight his friend experienced had him sliding an arrow from the quiver on his back, nocking, and drawing even as his peripheral vision showed him Rogers getting to his feet.

Barton focused on the brunette, lining up his shot before glancing down to double-check the arrowhead - the weight generally told him all he needed to hit his targets, but he had some odd heads in his kit. _Huh. My last explosive head,_ he thought. His nostrils flared as he caught a glimpse of Natasha’s barely-moving form. _I’m okay with that,_ the archer mused as he readied the shot.


	5. Falling Down

### Improvisation

Steve Rogers scrambled to his feet, scanning the square and taking in the tactical situation. He’d been tossed - and then _bounced_ \- a good fifty feet from the oddly-familiar brunette, who was once again looking away from him. Based on her still-outstretched left arm and the fact that Natasha was lying flat on her back, Steve could only conclude the assassin had also been hit with whatever had nailed him.

Movement high and to his flank drew his attention; after a glance he quickly activated his comms. “Capture, Barton. Not kill,” he ordered the archer. Without waiting for a response Steve started back toward the woman, driving his feet into the pavement to make as much noise as possible, trying to draw attention away from Romanoff.

Clint’s voice sounded somehow sulky when he replied. “ _I’ve only got the one tangle head left_ ,” he said by way of protest. Another glance confirmed the sniper was replacing whatever arrow he’d had nocked with a new shaft from his quiver.

“Then you’d better not miss,” Rogers transmitted quietly before raising his voice to address his quarry. “It’s time to end this nonsense; we all need to be gone before the ATCU gets here,” he declared. Steve almost winced at the slightly stilted phrasing, but that niggling sense of recognition was throwing him off.

Stilted or no, it got the job done; the brunette spun back towards him when he spoke up. This time she dropped into a combat stance, pointing _both_ hands at him. Rogers accelerated towards her, juking left and right at random while maintaining his forward progress, hoping that whatever the woman had blasted him with before wasn’t an area-effect attack.

With one last sidelong look to check Barton’s status, Steve dropped the jinking and made a beeline for his target, intentionally opening himself up to attack. He closed the last few yards, bracing for the expected blast wave - which is when he finally got a clear look at the woman’s face.

He stumbled forward blindly, legs gone clumsy and lungs emptied as recognition hit him far harder than the earlier shockwave. Echoes of shame burned in the back of his mind even as his body fought to stay upright; Rogers remembered those hard, dark eyes. Eyes that had once blazed with fury at false accusation now gazed calmly back at him, flames replaced by cool calculation.

Now a mere handful of feet away, legs still shaky, Steve choked out an incredulous “ _Skye?!_ ” just as his one-time rescuer sprang into motion. The hacker closed what remained of the gap with speed he really shouldn’t have found surprising - but did anyway.

She all but collided with him, one foot placed to entangle his own while hard-trained arms grappled her more massive opponent, then used her momentum to spin both of them around. Steve recognized the technique, the SHIELD-taught synthesis of a dozen martial arts styles - then realized why she’d done it, and tried to break away before -

Skye let go and pushed off, leaving him unbalanced but upright as she dove for the ground. Serum-enhanced reactions were finally catching up to the repeated shocks; Rogers planted his right leg, started to lunge aside - too late. He grunted as Clint’s tangle arrow took him square in the back.

* * *

Intellectually, Natasha knew it had only been a few seconds since she hit the ground a second time, but it felt as though long minutes dragged past while she fought to force air into her lungs, to force her battered body back into the fight. No, it could only have been a few seconds before she heard Rogers give Barton the order. She tried to speak up, to warn the others that they had no clue who or what they were fighting here. Not just a hacker or an Inhuman; but a SHIELD-trained, super-powered operative; motivation and objective unknown. Possibly even bait and trap together, in a single, deadly package.

Forcing herself to hands and knees, Romanoff could hear the rapid footfalls of Steve’s second approach. Still not quite able to force her body to stand, she struggled around on her knees to get eyes on the action - just as the hacker lunged at the super-soldier. Natasha watched helplessly as the experimental Stark-tech arrowhead burst a meter away from Rogers.

Tony’s very best artificial spider silk filaments exploded in a silvery cloud, micro-weighted end strands wrapping themselves securely around the soldier, pinning arms to torso from just above the elbow and enmeshing his legs all the way down to mid-calf.

Before Steve’s immobilized form hit the ground, the hacker had rolled clear. Now she used that momentum to recover her footing in a smooth, practiced motion that left her looking straight at the Black Widow.

Natasha tried one last time to force herself to stand, even as Skye’s right hand came up once more - not empty, this time.

The ex-assassin had just enough time to mentally curse Nick Fury and his lies before the pistol flashed, and her world went black.

* * *

“Well. Shit.” The troublesome brunette had executed her attack a split second after Clint had loosed his only capture arrow, leaving an incapacitated Cap and the archer with exactly zero offensive arrows of non-lethal intent. Their target had rolled clear of the falling super-soldier, and Clint reached back for another shaft, trying to work out which of his limited arsenal would be least likely to kill the woman.

He’d just decided to try the grapnel-and-line arrowhead when he spotted the sidearm pointed at Nat; the curious blue flash and missing tell-tale splash of red didn’t really register as his mind repeatedly replayed his friend’s boneless collapse. Flashing fingers selected another shaft without any conscious thought or input on his part, and he’d nocked, drawn, and loosed before higher brain function caught up with trained reaction.

“Well, _shit_ ” he repeated as the explosive-tipped arrow leaped off the string, buzzing towards his target - and his two friends on the ground near her.

Hawkeye watched with a sort of sick fascination as the missile carried its high-explosive payload towards the trio in the square. His eyes tracked the shaft, waiting for the inevitable explos-

Clint blinked in confusion as the arrow blew the hell up a good dozen feet short. His hands automatically selected and nocked another shaft - a simple inert broadhead this time - and he aimed for the general area of his target, waiting patiently for the roiling mass of smoke and flame to clear.

The flat, approximately fist-sized lump that rocketed from the center of that cloud pushed instinct to take over once again. Before the flying mass had inspired the slightly-panicked identification of _grenade_ , his ready shaft had been blind-fired into the flames, and Barton’s legs were carrying him left along the roof line, faster than he’d run in months. He heard the grenade thump on the roof behind him, almost on top of where he’d been standing. _One hell of an arm on that girl,_ he thought wryly, even as tactical instinct shouted at him to get out of the explosive’s blast and shrapnel zones. Barton opted to jump down to the roof of the next building rather than chance guessing wrong on the type of weapon; besides, any explosion on a flat surface tended to send most of the force out and _up_.

The archer glanced back at the grenade just before he passed out of sight - and nearly broke an arm when he botched his landing twelve feet down. The device hadn’t exploded; rather, it had been emitting a thick blue mist that didn’t look like any smoke or gas grenade he’d ever seen before. Clint rolled to his feet, flexing his bruised left arm while he reached for another shaft with his right. He approached the side of the roof fronting on the square, muttering to himself, “How much weirder can this day get?”

* * *

Steve hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, Skye rolling upright in his peripheral vision as his enhanced muscles strained to break free of Stark’s blasted chemical netting. _At least it’s not as strong as the stuff he gave that kid from Queens,_ he thought absently as a few strands gave way with tiny, sharp pops.

A sudden high, electronic whine from Skye and Natasha’s direction made him pause and crane his neck, trying to see what had happened. When he saw the spy’s body hit the ground, Rogers immediately tried to warn the archer off “Barton! Stand down!” he ordered in a low, flat voice that trailed off as he realized his earbud comm had come loose. Clint couldn’t hear the wave-off.

Steve twisted on the ground, scanning the rooftops and trying to find a way to keep the sniper from doing anything permanent - like putting an arrow through Skye. His racing thoughts broke off suddenly as he realized she was moving; Skye had turned away from Natasha, left arm raised to point at the rooftop of a nearby building while her right worked at the closure of a pouch on her web gear. A tiny part of Steve’s mind marveled that she’d managed to holster her sidearm so quickly, but the rest stayed focused in the moment.

His eyes followed the hacker’s sight line, figuring she’d spotted Clint - sure enough, he could see the archer was about to fire. He wanted to glance back at Skye to find out what she was doing, wanted to tell her to move, to shout at Barton and tell him not to shoot; but there wasn’t time for any of that, and he found he couldn’t look away as the arrow accelerated down at them.

The sudden explosion, however, caused Steve to flinch away from the flash and heat. The cloud of black and orange was close enough that he could feel his face warm and hear the crackle of burning fuel; he ignored both sensations to focus on the sight his involuntary twitch presented to him.

Skye was holding what looked like a largish hockey puck in her right hand, which she threw into the still-dissipating billow of smoke with a lazy sidearm motion - at least, it had _appeared_ to be a lazy toss, but the device flew away as if it had been launched by an oversize crossbow. He was still gaping at that absurd acceleration when that same right hand flashed down with snake-like speed to draw her weapon once again.

Steve found himself staring up into those cool brown eyes over the sights of a _very_ strange-looking pistol. Skye paused, lips twitching slightly as she apologized for what she was about to do. “Sorry. Improvise, adapt, and overcome.”

Rogers thought he heard a trace of regret in her tone, but she didn’t waste any time. He heard the electronic whine again; saw the accompanying blue flash; felt the splashing impact of the strange round on his skin. He fought the effects, resisted the encroaching darkness, but only long enough to catch a second flash.

* * *

Barton paused just short of the roof’s edge, arrow nocked. “What’s the situation, Cap?” he asked over comms. Receiving only silence in reply, he tried again. “Rogers?” Still nothing; he drew the shaft back and approached the edge, wincing slightly as his battered arm registered a protest.

A quick glance was all it took to locate his target; the brunette was approaching his position, striding across the square with her weapon pointed up at his perch. Clint loosed even as the pistol flashed blue, then ducked back as he felt the sub-sonic round pass within inches of his head. The near miss didn’t give him much time to assess his own shot, but he’d caught a glimpse of Rogers’ still form lying a couple yards from Nat.

Clint reached for his quiver while he displaced slightly left, then popped back up with shaft nocked and drawn, eyes scanning for the woman. She was still coming on, quicker now, and zig-zagging in an attempt to throw off his aim. He couldn’t tell if he’d hit her with his last shot, but the different approach argued he’d at least come close. Now the archer took a deep breath and took a moment to study her progress, betting her weapon’s accuracy on the move was poor enough to risk standing in the open. The arrow left the string before he’d consciously identified any pattern, but he _knew_ it was a good shot.

The unseen hand that slapped the shaft aside really shouldn’t have surprised him as much as it did.

Another of those blue flashes had the sniper dropping back again, frowning as it suddenly occurred to him that her movements didn’t make much sense. _There’s no easy access to these rooftops from the square - unless she can_ fly _on top of all the other ridiculous crap she’s pulled!_ He shook off the absurd thought, thinking back over what he’d seen from his original position.

The frown disappeared as he realized the building he’d escaped onto was the same one that had gained a War Machine sized hole to kick off this fiasco. A quick glance confirmed that yes, there was roof access from inside the building - meaning his opponent had to be headed for that makeshift ground-level entrance. Not a bad plan: get close enough to be sure of hitting him with her sidearm, without exposing herself to his fire.

 _I’ll just have to make sure she doesn’t get inside,_ Clint thought grimly as he nocked a fresh shaft. He sprinted to his right, quickly moving far enough that he could cover the hole without leaning out over the edge; or at least, without leaning out _much_.

Barton looked out over the square one more time, starting his scan in front of the gaping wound in the brick wall and working his way out to maximize his chances of hitting his target. She was still a few yards away from the building, almost directly below him, and he settled the broadhead’s point center mass before leading her slightly in the direction of the hole. Another split second, timing her next zig, and -

She zagged. Clint’s shot zipped through empty space and glanced off concrete sidewalk, but he wasn’t paying any attention. The woman was sprinting for the building, just as he’d predicted, only she was headed towards the intact wall to his _right_. He automatically reached for his quiver even as he twisted around to keep her in sight, trying for another shot even though his momentum was threatening to carry him over the edge. _Oh well, that’s what the grapnel’s for._

His next shaft had barely cleared the quiver’s lip when the brunette reached the corner of the building. She paused for a fraction of a second, then lashed out with a spinning side kick that hit the structure like a wrecking ball, pulverizing a few square feet of brick and shaking the entire building.

The impact caused Clint to fumble the arrow when he went to nock, as well as unbalancing him completely. _This is gonna suck,_ he thought, right hand flashing back for the grapnel arrow while he stared down at the square six stories below.

Before his fingers even reached the shaft, he noticed the mystery woman had _already_ recovered her feet after that awesome kick - and was now pointing her handgun right at him.

_Well, shi-_


	6. The Cavalry

### Misdirection

Agent Mackenzie chuckled and shook his head at the handful of new agents gathered around. “I know the Corps had some problems with the V-22, but our quinjets are a proven system. Even carrying three teams and all their gear won’t strain the powerplants.” He gave the newbies a wry smile. “It’ll be more than a little crowded, but as long as we don’t have to pull any radical maneuvers that won’t be a problem,” Mack finished distractedly as he spotted Coulson entering the _Zephyr_ ’s cargo dock. “Time to load up,” he told his audience, then crossed to meet the director.

“Where’s May?” Coulson asked without preamble.

“Just finished her walk-around, should be in the cockpit,” Mack replied. “Something wrong?”

“You could say that,” Coulson agreed as he started for the quinjet. He waved a tablet over his shoulder at Mack, adding “You should see this, too,” as he turned into the parasite craft’s cargo area. Frowning in puzzlement, Mack followed the director through the small mob of armed and armored agents aboard.

When they reached the cockpit, May glanced back over her shoulder and immediately ordered her copilot out of the compartment. “New intel?” she asked evenly.

Coulson simply tapped at the tablet for a moment before handing it over, then stood to one side so Mack could see the screen over May’s shoulder.

“ _...wn as War Machine was spotted just a few minutes before ..._ ” the anchor trailed off, listening to a report in her ear. “ _We have just received new video - and I understand this is from just a few minutes ago - just received some video from the scene._ ” The blonde talking head vanished, and a shaky cellphone video filled the screen, showing a sunny summer afternoon and a half-panicked crowd. Afer a few seconds, a shadow flitted by and the view swung crazily as the person holding the phone tried to find the source; not more than three seconds later, the image steadied down on a human shape - wearing a pair of mechanical wings.

May tapped to stop the recording, then handed the tablet back to Coulson. “Get off my bird.” Opening the cockpit hatch, she raised her voice slightly. “Piper, I need everybody strapped down or gone in sixty seconds. We’re leaving early.”

The other woman visibly stopped herself from saluting as she replied, “Yes, ma’am,” before turning to shout instructions to her team.

Mack hustled out of the plane in Coulson’s wake, pushing agents ahead of him who wouldn’t be able to find seats to strap into. “Piper, get the pod’s beacon deployed as soon as you land; I’ll bring the rest down when the _Zephyr_ gets there.”

* * *

Captain Danvers swore under her breath as the helmet display informed her that the _Startup sequence cannot complete. Run diagnostic and try again._ \- for the fourth time. She reset the sequence and slumped in the armor - at least she _tried_ to slump. With all the joints locked, it was more a matter of just going limp as she lay face-down in her high-tech coffin-slash-straitjacket.

Carol eyed the old-fashioned progress bar with disfavor, wondering which of the four often-contradictory software packages had spawned it. Probably not the base Stark programming; most of his designs had more flair. AIM’s modifications could be the source; though a group that marketed themselves as ‘Advanced Ideas’ probably didn’t go in for retro-styled GUIs. That left Hammer and the Air Force’s proprietary systems - and neither of those would surprise her at all.

A sudden, sharp explosion outside the building, audible even through the helmet, brought her musing to an abrupt end. “ _Come on_ ,” she growled at the nearly-filled bar, willing it to _finish_ this time.

_Startup complete. Initializing sensor systems._

Carol groaned in frustration. _I need_ movement _, who the hell set up this priority?_ Although with sensors back up, she was able to hear a pair of high-pitched whines; short-lived and close-spaced, it almost sounded like a weapon firing. Firing a double-tap, to be precise.

The armor’s joints abruptly let go, but Carol barely noticed. The sensors were reporting one person on the roof of the building, with another rapidly approaching the side where she’d made her ignominious entrance. Easing the suit to a standing position, Danvers checked on available systems. She had movement and sensors, but targeting, weapons, communications and flight were still balky or entirely off-line.

As she contemplated what might be her best course of action, the whole building shook around her, dust and larger debris raining down on her armored form. _First, get out of here before I have to find out how well this thing digs_ , she thought, striding towards the hole she’d opened on her way in.

Right before stepping outside, Captain Danvers raised both arms, pointing currently nonfunctional gauntlet repulsors ahead of her. The suit picked up another of those whining shots, popping up a right-pointing caret in the display to indicate the direction the shot had come from. She quickly exited, pivoted to follow the icon ... and froze up at the scene before her.

Agent Avery stood before her, both arms raised high. The woman’s hair was a few shades darker and quite a bit shorter than before, and she now wore a holstered pistol strapped to her right thigh. What really threw Carol were the barely-visible ... pulses? emanating from Avery’s hands.

“If you make me drop him, I’ll put you through another wall,” the brunette growled, not even glancing back.

Danvers barely registered the threat, because she had been following the trajectory of the pulses - looking up, and up some more until she saw the falling body. Falling far too slowly, and still twenty feet up. The suit automatically focused sensors on it - on _him_ , she realized - and reported the man was alive, but unconscious.

Avery lowered the man on that barely visible air cushion, then shifted around just before her burden reached head height. Carol realized she still had her own arms raised and leveled, and hadn’t yet said a word. She slowly lowered her hands and had started trying to activate the external speakers when the brunette cut off the pulses, catching the man as he dropped limply against her.

At which point Carol noted the absurdly high-tech quiver slung over his shoulder.

“Here,” the other woman said, shoving her load of unconscious archer at Danvers. “Put him over by the other assassin, then come back for the flyboy,” she pointed first out into the square, then at another limp body on the far side of the hole. At _one_ of the bodies, rather. “I’ll get Maximoff clear,” Avery continued, moving to collect the slighter of the two downed figures.

The officer didn’t move at first, gaping at the man in her arms as her brain connected _archer_ to _Maximoff_ and came up - “Get moving, Captain,” the woman snapped, interrupting Carol’s racing thoughts. “We don’t want anybody nearby if the building starts coming down.” After a quick glance at the battered structure, Danvers did as she was asked. She carried _Hawkeye_ out into the open, laid him down next to the _Black Widow_ , then gaped anew at _Captain America_ , _holy shit!_ , before the sound of Avery half-dragging Maximoff prodded her back into motion.

A few seconds later Captain Carol Danvers returned to add Sam Wilson to the improbable collection on the square. The maybe-an-agent-after-all was busy searching the _freaking Avengers_ laid out on the ground, and had already collected a small stack of smartphones before she moved on to the Falcon.

A sudden need for fresh air had her raising the helmet’s faceplate; the scene was just as bizarre without the suit’s sensors filtering it, and Carol shook her head bemusedly. “Who in the _hell_ are you?” she muttered at the brunette’s back.

The other woman stood slowly, turned to face the armor, took a deep breath and opened her mouth to respond - and was completely drowned out by the screaming, high-gee arrival of a still-decloaking quinjet.

* * *

Agent Piper looked up at the sound of releasing seat restraints, ready to tear a strip off the guilty party if they were part of her Alpha team. A quick glance told her that wouldn’t be necessary - one of the newbies in Bravo was actually _standing_ by his seat. “I’m not sure why you think landing will be any smoother than takeoff,” Piper told the man, pitching her voice to carry throughout the cargo area. As the chastened trooper hastily sat back down, she checked the rest of Bravo and the three members of Charlie that had found seats before Agent May separated them from the _Zephyr_.

“ _Ninety seconds out_ ,” the copilot informed the two-plus teams of SHIELD troopers over the bulkhead-mounted speakers.

“Let’s review!” Piper shouted over the growing howl of the turbines. “Bravo team - supported by Alpha - will secure the perimeter when we hit dirt! _Don’t_ forget to engage jamming! Charlie troopers on me until the rest of your team show up with Agent Mackenzie and the containment unit!”

Further instructions became impossible as the quinjet started maneuvering violently - one moment the agents were hanging against their restraints, then they were slammed back into the dubiously cushioned seats. After the invisible giant got bored with slapping them around, the roar of the engines reached them unfiltered as the cargo ramp started lowering - still well above ground level, of course.

One last hard jolt and the troopers hit their quick-release latches. “Go, go go!” Agent Piper shouted, chivying the others out ahead of her as she paused to grab the containment pod’s landing beacon from its rack. Striding down the ramp, she shoved the collapsed transponder at the nearest Charlie trooper. “Get this deployed, Roth,” she ordered, glancing around to confirm Alpha and Bravo were spreading out properly.

Which is when she spotted the day’s target standing next to the Air Force’s flying suit of armor - and the five supine bodies arrayed behind them. A whispered “Holy shit!” from one of the two remaining Charlie-team agents prodded Piper back into motion; she wasn’t here to gawk at unconscious Avengers. She didn’t bother to draw the ICER holstered at her hip, though her right hand rested comfortably on the grip as she started calmly forward, feeling the Charlie troopers fall in behind, one on either flank.

When Piper opened her mouth to ask just what the hell had happened, she was interrupted by the rogue SHIELD agent. “Ah, backup!” she smirked. “Better late than never, I suppose.”

“We’re actually running ahead of schedule,” Piper pointed out, wondering what the hell the other woman was playing at.

Johnson dug out her phone and checked the time, then sighed dramatically. “So you are. I’ve heard of busted ops, but this is just ridiculous.” She rolled her eyes and gestured at the armored officer. “I guess we can blame our uninvited guest for kicking things off early.”

Piper simply nodded in reply. _Why the hell isn't Agent May out here yet?_ she thought behind a carefully blank expression. The sudden _hiss-clank_ as the officer’s helmet faceplate opened drew her attention, and her neutral face almost failed when she saw a rather angry blonde instead of Colonel Rhodes.

_On second thought, that look isn’t ‘pissed-off’. That look is ‘I suspect I’m being fed a line of shit.’_

Sure enough, Blondie had questions.

“Hold on, you’re telling me this charlie-fox was _planned_? I thought the op was to locate and capture a powerful Inhuman, not bag a handful of fugitive superheros!” She glared at Piper for a bit, then shifted the look to Johnson. “And why didn’t you mention you had backup on the way, even if they weren’t supposed to be here yet?” The officer blew out a frustrated breath before adding, “And did you _have_ to put me through a wall? I’m just here to observe an ATCU operation for the President!” she finished plaintively, voice rising to a near-shout.

Piper did her best to ignore Blondie’s renewed glare as it shifted between her and the other woman, focusing instead on Johnson’s face and praying the hacker had some canned bullshit at the ready - or at least some idea of how to placate the angry amazon in powered armor.

Finally, after an agonizing three seconds, Johnson smirked up at the officer. “Sorry Captain. Operational details are classified. You haven’t been cleared.”

Watching the blonde’s face turn an alarming shade of red, Piper braced for the explosion - when Agent Roth returned and knocked the tension down a few notches. “Beacon deployed, ma’am,” he reported, seemingly oblivious to the confrontation.

“Thank you, agent.” Piper turned to her left, finding Agent Sullins on that flank - which meant his buddy Clayton was almost certainly the trooper to her right. “Go get an empty cargo crate,” she ordered, then turned to Clayton and Roth. “You two start collecting their gear,” she gestured at the Avengers. “None of it goes in the pod with them.”

After the armed agents moved off to complete their tasks, the three women went back to warily eyeing each other. Before glances escalated to glares - again - Johnson shrugged minutely and turned to face the military officer squarely.

“I’ve got no excuse for attacking you, Captain. You being here could have ruined weeks of work, and I let frustration get the better of me.” She glanced back at Piper before adding, “I’m sure my supervising officer will have something to say about that.”

“For sure,” the agent agreed, suppressing a shudder as she imagined the sorts of punishments Agent May could come up with. “On top of that, I imagine the director will want to debrief you personally.”

Johnson grimaced and looked down at her hands. “I’m breaking a lot of regs today.” She looked up at the officer again. “Attacking a friendly officer, destruction of private property,” she jerked a thumb at the crumbling brick building before hooking the same thumb under her tactical harness. “Misuse of agency equipment,” Johnson added, running the fingers of her left hand over the matte black sections of her right gauntlet.

Piper felt her lips twitch when she picked up on what the hacker was doing, implying the gauntlets were just another piece of gear rather than custom-made to help channel her Inhuman gift. She risked a glance at the captain, wondering if the red herring was working; the blonde’s frown of concentration didn’t bode well for the rogue agent’s attempted deception.

Fortunately, the roaring arrival of the _Zephyr_ ’s containment unit ended that particular conversation. Barely a second after the bulky oblong box settled on the beacon, doors at both ends slid open and more armored agents joined the party. _And there’s the rest of Charlie team,_ Piper thought, then heaved a mental sigh of relief as one last figure exited the pod. _Agent Mackenzie. Thank God._

Mack gestured to the Charlie troopers, sending them to back up the perimeter teams, then moved to join the three women. He opened his mouth to say something, only to pause as Sullins rushed past with the requested container. Rather than continue his interrupted comment, Mack took a moment to examine the area, taking in the shaky building, scattered debris and unconscious fugitives, as well as the obviously disciplined SHIELD agents going about their assignments.

Finished with his assessment, Mack turned back to the odd little group of three. “Good work, agent.” He held Piper’s eye until she acknowledged the compliment with a slight nod, before turning to address his former partner. “You ... get scarier every time I see you,” he deadpanned. Piper knew enough about their history to understand that the comment was simultaneously a joke and a serious expression of his concern for the woman he used to call Tremors.

When Johnson only responded with a tiny shrug, Mack sighed and turned to the armored figure. “Captain Danvers, I’m Agent Mackenzie. I’ve been informed,” he pointed at his earpiece, “that you’re here as an observer for President Ellis. Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Well, Agent Mackenzie, if you could put me in touch with my command that would be great. I’ve got no communications - in or out - even though my suit tells me all systems are functional.” She paused a moment before adding, “My sensors were acting the same way, before someone -” Danvers sent a quick glare Johnson’s way “- zapped the whole suit. Diagnostics might not be entirely accurate after that hard reboot.”

“Good to know our jammers are so effective,” the big man grinned. “I’d bet that suit has subroutines designed for this kind of situation,” Mack started excitedly before visibly reining himself in. “It would probably be faster to just leave the area we’re jamming,” the engineer admitted. “I’ll tag along if you want, answer questions you - or higher - have about the operation.” he glanced around the square again before adding. “Within reason.”

“Then lead the way,” Danvers said shortly. Mack nodded and started off, armor trailing behind. As they walked away, Piper faintly heard the officer ask: “Why does the shotgun on your back have a giant _blade_ attached to it?”

Fainter still, Mack’s reply: “Because an axe just wasn’t getting the job done.”

Piper turned back to check on the agents clearing the prisoners. Roth had already dealt with bow and quiver, and was checking Barton’s pocket while Clayton and Sullins worked to remove Wilson’s wing pack. She wasn’t sure if anybody had checked the other three yet, so she started forward to check - or double-check - Romanoff for hidden threats.

She hadn’t gone two paces before their last prisoner started issuing orders.

“You two leathernecks hand that pack off to the swabbie, then start getting them into the pod. You’d better start with Cap; even though I hit him with a double dose of dendrotoxin, I doubt he’ll be out for much longer.” Johnson then turned to Piper, sublimely confident the former Marines would follow her orders.

The perfectly synced two-part chorus of “ _Aye, aye, ma’am_ ” that followed indicated she was right to feel that way.

“I don’t mean to step on your toes Agent Piper, but I just got done fighting ’em one at a time; I really don’t want to take on five cranky Avengers with ICER headaches.” Piper blinked and opened her mouth to reply, only to close it abruptly as Johnson handed her a stack of five smartphones.

“That’s all I found on them, besides the quiver, wing pack, and Romanoff’s empty holster.” She waved Roth over, who had just finished stashing the Avengers’ equipment in the foot-locker sized crate.

While the ex-SEAL was moving to comply, Piper examined the handful of tech she’d been given. It took less than a second to identify a possible issue. “Agent Johnson, where is _your_ phone? You don’t think we’d let the hacker who wrote most the pod’s software take a pocket computer in there, do you?”

Rather than the indignation Piper half expected for a reaction, the other woman _grinned_ at her. “Please! Call me Daisy; I’m not an agent anymore.” The grin faded a bit around the edges. “To answer your question,” Johns- _Daisy_ continued, “no, I didn’t expect that. I was going to hand my phone to Roth, along with the rest of my gear.” She shrugged, handing the device to Piper before turning to face the waiting trooper.

“Wait a second, how do you know so much about these guys?” Piper waved at the three men from Charlie team. “They didn’t even know SHIELD was back when you left.”

“Simple,” Daisy replied after shrugging out her harness. She reached down to unstrap the holster before continuing, “I backstopped Talbot’s people, did my own background checks when these guys signed on at the ATCU. _Really_ don’t want another Hydra situation.”

Piper tried to imagine the general’s reaction to having the one-time hacktivist looking over his shoulder, and had to cover a snort of laughter with a few sharp coughs. She waved off Daisy’s concerned glance, before the urge to laugh suddenly vanished as she considered the possibility that the fugitive might be looking over _SHIELD’s_ shoulder.

She contemplated that unpalatable possibility for a few moments as Roth carted Daisy’s harness, holster and weapon over to the crate. The SEAL’s tense body language when he came back pulled Piper out of her thoughts. Roth eyed Daisy’s hands warily, and he carried his carbine-variant ICER just a bit too casually. “Going to need the gauntlets, too, ma’am.”

Daisy quirked a small smile at his obvious caution, then started to tug the long black devices off her forearms. A sudden soft hiss of pain had Piper giving the Inhuman concerned look of her own. When the gauntlets finally came off Piper winced at the split, bruised knuckles and the ugly purpling starting to creep up Daisy’s wrists.

“There’s an aid kit in the pod,” Piper said softly.

“In other words, time the last prisoner got with the program,” Daisy commented wryly.

“That’s not-” Piper started to snap, then clamped her jaw shut.

“Sorry,” Daisy murmured with a tiny shrug. “You may not have meant it that way, but it’s still true.”

Piper merely nodded in reply, and the pair turned to face the containment unit, just in time to catch Sullins and Clayton emerging from within. The Marines had been busy; all five Avengers were already in the pod.

Daisy started forward, then paused to look back over her shoulder. After a moment’s consideration she simply sighed and nodded minutely. “Agent Piper.”

Piper watched the hacker-turned-agent-turned-fugitive turn and stride to the pod, her path taking her directly between the two agents walking away from it. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise when Sullins and Clayton braced to attention as Daisy passed, then turned to follow; Piper wondered if they were an escort or a guard detail.

Daisy never looked back as she entered the portable cell, didn’t even flinch as her freedom ended with a quiet hiss.


	7. Containment

### Eyes Wide Open

Steve returned to consciousness slowly, rising through layers of throbbing sound. Eventually he realized the rhythmic thudding creating overpressure waves behind his eyes was, in fact, the sound of his own heartbeat. Instinct pried open his eyelids, an attempt to gather data currently being denied to his hearing. The searing pain that forced them shut once again - and seemed to redouble the pressure - finally clued him in: he had one _massive_ headache. The super-soldier hadn’t felt anything like it since before Project Rebirth. Back when he could still get drunk.

Laying as still as possible, he tried to remember how he’d ended up with the mother of all hangovers. After what felt like an hour - but was probably more like thirty seconds - Steve decided the pain was already receding, Erskine’s serum working its magic. He cracked one eye open experimentally. When no new pain flooded his skull, Steve let both lids rise to take in his surroundings.

He was lying on his back, unrestrained and flat on the floor of a small, low-ceilinged room; walls and ceiling in his line of sight appeared to be tiled, a strange white polygonal pattern that was somehow familiar. After a few seconds of trying to pin down exactly what that pattern reminded him of, the throbbing in his head receded enough that Rogers noticed two new details of his situation.

First, his phone had shifted around and somehow ended up pressing uncomfortably into the small of his back.

Second, there was somebody else moving around in the room. Steve heard rustling fabric and plasticized papers brushing together, coming from somewhere out of sight, but close. He took a slow, deep breath, preparing to jump up and punch his way out - if necessary.

The enhanced soldier got as far as sitting up before the scene around him stopped him cold.

Wilson and Barton were laid out next to him on the floor, each partially underneath a row of folded-down jump seats. Stretched out and strapped to those seats were the unmoving bodies of his other two teammates; Wanda above Sam and Nat just a few inches from her fellow former SHIELD agent.

Seeing his friends finally brought the day’s disastrous events fully into focus, and Steve had to struggle to control an angry, frustrated growl as fresh betrayal tore at the still-healing scars of Hydra’s recent return from the shadows. Before he could force himself to finish standing, he was greeted by his latest mistake.

“You were out longer than I expected, Rogers,” Skye told him. “How’s your head?”

Steve blinked at the concern in her voice. _She can’t seriously think I’ll fall for that, after what she did back in Arcolin._ He clamped his jaw on a hot retort, standing up slowly to buy time before he had to respond. _First thing’s first: gather intel._ He turned around once he was fully upright, careful not to disturb the others.

“Felt like a raging hangover at first, but better now. Should clear up in a few more minutes.” Skye was sitting on the floor, legs crossed and leaning back on what appeared to be a door, complete with opaque panels that looked like they should be windows. In front of her was an unfolded med kit, nearly identical to those he’d seen when he ran missions with STRIKE. She had been applying liquid bandage to one of a series of wounds on her knuckles, but paused when he didn’t continue speaking.

Without moving so much as a millimeter, Skye seemed suddenly on edge. “We gonna have a problem, Cap?” she asked in a flat voice, “or can I finish patching up my hands?” Steve didn’t see any sign of the handgun she’d used before, and he currently towered over her seated form, yet he felt sure that _she_ was sure any ‘problem’ would be resolved in her favor.

He briefly considered putting that to the test, but the confined space - with his friends lying helpless around him - caused him to reconsider. “No,” he shook his head slightly, hands raised placatingly. “No problem - for now.”

Skye’s shoulders relaxed slightly, and her voice lost most of the monotone when she replied. “Good, because our hosts have eyes and ears in here. Any ... excitement, some tech miles away taps a command, and boom. Everybody in here has a nice nap.” She grimaced and resumed dressing her knuckles before continuing. “I’d like to avoid an ICER headache of my own.”

“Is that what you shot me -” Steve glanced around at his team “- shot _us_ with?”

“Yup,” the hacker replied shortly as she finished with one hand. “You can check ’em over yourself, shouldn’t be more than a few scrapes and bruises.” Skye looked up at him briefly, then pointed her newly-bandaged left hand at the other end of the room. “There should be an identical kit down there if you need it,” she added before starting in on her right hand.

Steve glared at the crown of her head for a few seconds, the casual dismissal stoking his anger briefly, but he quickly shook it off and knelt to check on his friends. He had just finished his first, basic check of all four unconscious Avengers when a voice abruptly filled the tiny compartment.

“ _Everybody strapped in, Agent Johnson? We’d like to bring the pod back aboard_.” Steve frowned as he realized very little of those two sentences made much sense to him. _Who is Agent Johnson? Back aboard_ what _?_

He turned to ask Skye, just in time to see her look up at the ceiling and roll her eyes. “You’ve got cameras in here, Agent. If you want us to strap everybody down for lift, just say that,” she said to empty air.

“ _Well then, buckle up_ ,” the voice replied a moment later. Amusement colored the rest of the communication: “ _Lift in sixty seconds._ Zephyr One _out_.”

Steve blinked as Skye actually _growled_ in annoyance at the unseen agent, then cleared his throat. “Skye ... Johnson?” he asked when she looked over at him.

“Not now, Steve. Get Maximoff secured - just so she doesn’t roll off the seats,” Skye ordered, moving to do the same for Natasha.

“What about the other two?” he asked, tightening a second strap across Wanda’s torso.

Skye was silent a moment, obviously considering her answer as she double-checked Romanoff’s restraints. “They’ll probably be okay where they’re at,” she answered musingly, then smirked up at Steve. “Though you might have to use those enhanced muscles to hold them down if we hit turbulence.”

“Turb- We’re on an _airplane_?” Steve had barely finished his incredulous question when the whole chamber lurched, one end rising a fractional second before the other. Long experience of riding small aircraft on missions let him ride out the sudden shift automatically; when he looked to Skye for a response he was unsurprised to find she hadn’t had any difficulty either.

“Not yet,” she told him, smirk slowly spreading into a small smile. “The trip up takes a few minutes, especially when the pod’s got a full load like this.” None of that answered his question directly, and he frowned down at the brunette as he tried to work it out. Skye just looked back at him calmly, though her smile was headed toward a full-blown grin.

Eyes still locked on Steve, she spoke to their hosts again. “ _Zephyr_ Ops, I know you’re still listening; please drop opacity on all window panels to twenty percent.”

The same voice came back on the speakers. “ _Those panels are in privacy mode, so that nobody can get a good look at our ... guests, Agent_ ,” the voice replied patiently.

“Don’t give me that, Ops. We’re already clear - drop the opacity.” After a moment’s thought she added: “And throw an altimeter display on the primary panels.”

Steve couldn’t help the smile smile that crept over his lips as Skye’s Command Voice drew an immediate response. Late afternoon sunlight slanted into the compartment as large oblong sections of both long walls suddenly became transparent. _Mostly_ transparent; the requested altimeter took up a small area in the upper left corner of each panel.

He blinked at the rapidly rising digits on display, then - taking care not to step on Clint - leaned over and looked out the newly-revealed window. The huge bank of fluffy white clouds at approximately their altitude had him double-checking the digits to his left, before he leaned closer to look down. After a second’s observation, Steve decided the city faintly visible - through a wispy cloud _below_ the pod - had to be Arcolin; he could just barely identify the park he’d spent the afternoon watching, off to one side.

It suddenly occurred to him to look _up_ ; he’d barely gotten a glimpse of the large black aircraft a few thousand feet above them when his stakeout partner started screaming behind him.

The pain and confusion in that first, wordless cry made Steve wince in sympathy. By the time he turned around Wanda had noticed the straps across her torso, triggering a stream of angry Sokovian curses. He bent to release the latches, but a crimson mist had done the job before he’d gotten his hand halfway there. When that uncanny red aura continued expanding, he smothered a few curses of his own; this situation could go downhill _fast_ with Wanda’s sometimes unpredictable powers added to the brew.

She used her abilities to bring herself fully upright, levitating a couple inches off the deck. Steve could see her eyes flitting around the pod, but she either ignored or could not hear his attempts to get her attention.

Wanda’s gaze quickly landed on Skye; the one-time SHIELD agent was standing near the door at the end of the compartment, and the Sokovian’s cursing redoubled as she raised one hand and thrust it at the other woman. Rogers watched in horror as a wave of red slammed Skye back into the door, then shrank to a slim tendril that wrapped itself around her throat. He immediately reached for Wanda, only to have his hand deflected short of her arm with a flash of red.

He repeated the motion twice, with the same lack of effect, before turning his attention to Skye - if the Inhuman unleashed one of her shockwave attacks in here there was no telling what would happen to the three unconscious Avengers. She hadn’t raised her own hand at Wanda, however, because both were scrabbling at the immaterial crimson noose. Raw-knuckled fingers sought to relieve the pressure while the hacker’s eyes locked on Wanda’s, and Steve felt his own panic rising when he noticed Skye’s struggles gradually weakening.

He stepped forward to get into Wanda’s line of sight, then turned to face her. She was still speaking Sokovian, though she’d dropped to a conversational volume, and her wide eyes were filled with flickering crimson flames as she looked past him. Steve took a deep breath, ready to try again to stop what seemed to be a _literal_ senseless death, when several things happened in rapid succession.

First, the fire vanished and Wanda’s eyes widened further, then she stopped speaking entirely as her mouth dropped open in apparent shock. Then, a heartbeat later, all of the scarlet mist in the room vanished as abruptly as it had appeared. Wanda’s knees buckled the instant her feet touched the floor, leaving his friend sobbing into one hand while she leaned forward on the other.

Rogers glanced over his shoulder to check on Skye, in time to see the end of her gasping, coughing slide down the door.

For another, eternal, heartbeat, nobody moved. 

“Okay, why the hell did Wanda just try to kill your hacker friend?” Sam’s strained question broke the strange spell, causing the others to startle slightly.

Steve started to bend down to check on the two women, only to blink in surprise as Skye waved him off and lurched to her feet for a short, stumbling trip to collapse at Wanda’s side. He watched the hacker put an arm around his friend’s shoulders, then lean in to whisper assurances to her assailant.

When he turned to give Wilson an incredulous ‘ _Are you seeing this?_ ’ look, Steve was surprised to see the parajumper had curled up under the overhanging row of jump seats. _I guess that explains why Wanda didn’t land on him._ “You’re awake,” he said unnecessarily.

Sam just rolled his eyes at that statement, then winced. He unfolded himself from his dubious shelter with a quiet groan, squinting at Steve as he pulled himself into one of the seats. “At least tell me you’ve got the same headache I do?” Rogers just shook his head, trying to hide the way his lips twitched at the plaintive tone. The former airman closed his eyes with another groan. “That’s just not fair.”

“Sorry about that,” Skye spoke up, voice still just a bit raspy. “ICER headaches are no fun, but they don’t last long - at least in my experience.” If the remark was meant to reassure Sam, the effect was somewhat undercut by the offhand, distracted delivery; the hacker hadn’t even looked away from Wanda.

Steve frowned down at the pair - still sitting on the floor facing away from him - then turned to face Sam. Mentally shifting gears, he motioned for the other man to join him at the window, intending to ask about the black aircraft he’d glimpsed a minute ago.

Rather than bright sunlight and clouds, however, the view was of the inside of another structure - or possibly another vehicle. The area outside looked very much like the hold of a large cargo airplane, with a handful of pallets secured to tie-down points on the deck; Steve felt his eyebrows trying to rise when he realized exactly how many pallets would fit in the area he could see.

A low atonal whistle beside him jerked his attention back to the interior of the pod. “How long were we out?” Sam asked quietly.

“I’m not sure,” Steve replied, glancing over to see his friend studying the hold. “Why?”

“I’m not sure,” Sam echoed, his usual teasing tone wholly absent. “Arcolin is hours from any airfield big enough to operate something this size.”

“Well, I don’t think it will help figure out how long we were unconscious, but I do know roughly where we are.” Steve smirked at Sam’s questioning frown. “We’re still at Arcolin - just a couple tens of thousands of feet above town. No, really!” he insisted when Sam scoffed. “Saw it with my own two eyes,” he said with a nod at the window.

Whatever Wilson had to say about that little revelation was cut off when Barton let out a groan from his spot on the floor. Barely a second later, Natasha somehow turned a question into a threat: “Is there a reason I’m strapped down?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, mostly exposition and conversation this chapter, hopefully it wasn't too boring.


	8. Reunion

### New and Old Wounds

Rogers glanced around the pod, briefly examining the other occupants for what felt like the thousandth time since they’d settled into the hard plastic jump seats. He wasn’t sure exactly how long they’d been sitting there, tense and silent. Even looking outside didn’t help; there had been exactly zero activity in the cargo area since their arrival. He finished his examination with an internal sigh, not sure if the total lack of change was a good sign or a bad one.

Each of his fellow Avengers was dealing with the situation in his or her own way; Sam had fallen back on his Air Force habits and was taking the opportunity to grab some shut-eye - or at least pretend to nap. Clint had at first attempted to fill the silence with mindless chatter, only to have Wanda wave him to silence with a warning: “We are being monitored.” Now the archer was trying to follow Wilson’s example, but couldn’t go more than a couple minutes without fidgeting.

Wanda was ... way too calm, really, and the main reason Steve kept checking up on everybody. The Sokovian was taking the prospect of another bout of captivity far better than he expected, and her apparent lack of worry only added to his own. Natasha had spent the entire time studying the pod’s only non-Avenger occupant, barely even appearing to blink as she gazed at the young woman who had managed to land all of them in here.

Skye sat slightly apart from the others, at first glance totally unconcerned by Natasha’s scrutiny; though her shoulders and neck were slightly stiff, so maybe the hacker was _slightly_ worried about the ex-assassin staring at her. Or maybe that stiffness had another source; Steve had noticed ... something, every time he’d checked on Skye. He couldn’t explain it if asked, but the word that eventually came to mind when he looked at her was _impatience_. And that impression was growing stronger each time.

A sudden _whirring_ and _clanking_ of machinery, just beyond the cargo area’s forward bulkhead, brought an end to the holding pattern in the tiny room. They all stood and turned toward the sound, then looked up at the overhead between pod and bulkhead as a muffled _thump_ sounded. Apparently something had impacted the top of the giant aircraft’s fuselage.

Sam cleared his throat, but before the question could be asked they all got to see the answer. The overhead parted and an entirely other, smaller, airplane was partially lowered into the cargo bay.

The parajumper’s disbelieving “Now that’s just ridiculous!” covered Steve’s low growl as he recognized the craft.

“Why does this plane have a docking mechanism designed for a SHIELD quinjet?” Rogers demanded, not taking his eyes from the offending jet’s still-closed rear ramp.

Surprisingly, Barton was the first to answer. “They’re amazing planes, Cap. I’ve honestly been wondering why we haven’t seen the U.S. military using the ones they ... inherited.” The former SHIELD assassin - and pilot - shook his head slightly. “I guess the ATCU had plans for those airframes.”

Further discussion was cut off when the quinjet’s cargo ramp dropped, disgorging what looked like a squad of armored troopers dressed all in black. One pair carried a foot-locker sized container off the plane, then set about securing it to the deck while their squad mates milled around and chattered. Before they had finished, a slender, dark-haired woman followed down the ramp and barked a few sharp orders.

Steve was not surprised to see the troopers scurrying to obey; Clint yelping and dropping out of sight, however, was unexpected.

The senior agent radiated impatience as she stood, unmoving, between quinjet and containment pod. As soon as the last armored agent had fled the scene - barely ahead of the closing hatch - the woman crossed to stand in front of the pod’s window. Her eyes scanned the four standing Avengers - pausing briefly on Natasha - before her gaze locked on Skye. The hacker had drifted back, partially hidden behind Sam, and was looking everywhere but at the agent outside.

“Show me,” the woman ordered tersely.

“You talked to Piper,” Skye muttered in a resigned tone that managed to turn the simple statement into a question.

“Daisy, hands.”

Steve felt his eyebrows start to come down in confusion at the unexpected appellation, only to have them shoot back up at the response.

Skye huffed like a surly teenager and obeyed, raising both hands to show the older agent the split knuckles and bruised wrists. Seemingly oblivious to the gaping Avengers - everybody but Natasha was openly staring - the agent outside studied the damage.

“I thought you were wearing the gauntlets,” the woman said eventually, tapping lightly on the window to indicate the hacker’s bruises.

“Most of the bruising is from the very end; carrying or lowering heavy loads tends to overload the dampening.” The younger woman shrugged. “Probably because they weren’t designed to handle outgoing and incoming - y’know, reflected - at the same time.”

“How long have you known this?” the agent questioned, voice flat.

“Since I caught Rosalind Price, after Lash ...” Skye trailed off suddenly, looking away from the other woman. Steve saw something flicker across the agent’s face, but it passed so quickly he couldn’t tell what it might mean.

After a few heartbeats, she took a deep breath and picked up the discussion. “Did you tell FitzSimmons?”

“Of _course_ I told them,” Skye replied quickly, the eye-roll practically audible. “Things just got a little busy, remember? First we found another Hydra head; and then Hydra was collecting Inhumans; and then Hive ...” Again, she cut off whatever she’d been about to say; again, she looked away from the agent outside. But this time she seemed to hunch in on herself, arms wrapped around her torso.

Steve blinked in surprise when Wanda put an arm around Skye’s shuddering shoulders, but he didn’t get a chance to ask about the gesture before the older woman picked up the skeletal timeline.

“And then you left.” The near-whisper was practically monotone, but Skye twitched as if she’d been slapped.

She straightened up, shrugging off Wanda’s arm, and leaned into the window. “Talbot wanted me to sign the Accords,” she ground out. “I won’t be some bureaucrat’s tool.” The pair locked eyes through the high-tech transparent polymer, Skye practically glaring and the agent simply gazing back.

Steve had taken the talk of Hydra mostly at face value; of course an agency like the ATCU would be involved in cleaning up that mess. He had no idea what to make of the hive business, though their reactions told him it was likely bad news. The sudden reference to the Sokovia Accords, though - that abrupt turn in the conversation flicked his paranoia into overdrive.

Rogers couldn’t help reviewing the entire day’s events; was the whole thing a setup? From the intel Natasha had obtained - and Skye’s silence when he’d asked about it - to the absurd skirmish in the square, and now a so-called argument between putatively former teammates that hit virtually every major - terrestrial - issue he’d run across since being defrosted.

The possibility that it was all a ruse, a play to gain his trust ... didn’t fit the woman he’d spent hours talking with that day in California. Didn’t match up with the assistance she’d provided, keeping his team off the radar ever since.

He was still debating whether or not to say anything when the agent outside broke the silence, speaking directly to Skye as if there were nobody else present.

“The Accords made a good excuse,” she agreed at last. “But that’s not why you left,” she countered, then paused to take a deep breath. When the agent continued, her voice was a barely-audible whisper. “Daisy ... Andrew and Lincoln -”

“Died because of my mistakes,” the young woman interrupted hotly. “Just like Trip,” she added, voice rising toward a shout. “I left because I couldn’t stand the thought of killing another friend! How long before Mack, or Fitz, or Jemma pays the price for one of my screw-ups?” The shouting died in a choked half-sob, and Skye looked away yet again before continuing in a rasping whisper. “What if you’re next, May? What if it’s D.C.?” She shook her head wearily and slumped down onto a seat. “No. You all need to stay as far away from me as possible.”

The older agent - Agent May, Steve reminded himself - seemed ready to argue the point, but managed to keep from snapping a quick reply. After taking a few calming breaths, she changed the subject instead. “When we get everybody back aboard, the _Zephyr_ will head for the Playground. We’ll talk again when we get home, Daisy.”

May waited a bit for Skye - Daisy? - to reply, then sighed and turned her attention to the pod’s other occupants. A quick glance took in Steve, Sam, and Wanda - Clint was still trying to keep out of sight, for some reason - before locking in on Natasha. The former assassin just gazed back calmly, content to wait.

Even after a few heartbeats, Steve could tell this staring contest had the potential to go on for a long, _long_ time. Thankfully May snorted softly and rolled her eyes before more than a minute had passed. “Natasha,” she nodded slightly.

“Melinda.” Romanoff’s reply was cool, considering. “I can’t believe you taught her the counter,” she added, allowing a slight questioning note to creep in at the end.

“I trained her to survive,” the agent replied with just a hint of pride. “Being a field agent is more dangerous these days,” May explained at Nat’s quirked eyebrow, then cut her eyes over at Steve and Sam. Romanoff considered that, then nodded slightly. Agent May returned the nod, then looked to the empty space over Clint’s head.

“There are other dangers that are a little bit harder to train for ... aren’t there Barton?” The bite in her voice should have put a hole in the polymer, but it only caused the archer to stand up slowly, sheepish smile pasted on his face.

When his eyes met May’s he flinched and looked away quickly, then gulped and tried to return her glare with a bland expression. “Mel,” he greeted warily.

“You’d better have a good excuse for trying to hit my agent with an exploding arrow, Barton.” When he opened his mouth to reply, she cut him off. “Don’t answer yet,” she instructed. “Think about it. We’ll talk later,” the agent promised, causing Clint to gulp again, then lick his lips before nodding hastily.

Agent May watched the archer for a few more beats, then looked up at Steve. Rogers gazed back as calmly as he could manage, wondering what sort of agent could produce the reactions he’d just seen from the pair of assassins.

Before the woman got around to speaking to him, however, his enhanced hearing picked up a series of muted thumps in the main body of the aircraft. Agent May frowned slightly, cocking her head as if she heard them too, and for a split second Steve thought she might be enhanced as well - then mentally kicked himself as he realized the pod was muffling the noise. She could obviously hear better, being _outside_ the containment unit.

Rogers was still chastising himself for letting Barton’s fear get to him when Skye - _Daisy_ \- spoke up, standing and turning to face the window once more. “May?” she said quietly.

The hatch through which the armored squad had earlier exited suddenly opened wide, and the agent started to turn toward the motion.

“May,” Daisy repeated, a bit louder, then waited until Agent May was looking at her before continuing. “I’m sorry, May,” she said evenly. Everybody in the pod saw the older woman’s eyes widen slightly, as if struck by sudden realization. “But I can’t come in just yet,” Daisy finished.

Only Steve heard the slight electronic whine - the others just saw Agent Melinda May collapse like a string-cut puppet.


	9. Escape

### Human Resources

Director Coulson stood calmly in the operations center aboard _Zephyr One_ , isolated despite the bustling activity around him. Agents monitored communications with and among the teams on the ground, as well as across all of SHIELD. He ignored it all, eyes locked on the video feed streaming to the tablet in his hand, totally absorbed by the matching audio in his earbud.

Long years as an agent let Phil easily maintain his blank expression, even through the jumble of emotions caused by what he was witnessing remotely. Happiness that Daisy was alive and aboard warred with worry over the way she still blamed herself for what had been done under Hive’s sway. Trepidation at his upcoming reunion with the Avengers battled paternal pride in the woman who had unexpectedly caused that reunion to be possible. But behind all of that, a niggling thread of doubt:

_Where are the Watchdogs? Why haven’t Mack’s teams found any trace of them, or the ex-Hydra scientist those thugs are supposed to be here to buy from?_

Coulson smirked absently as Melinda got reacquainted with Natasha and Clint, still mentally picking at the problem. Once the techs back at the Playground had cracked the encryption on the flash drive from the collapsed building, he had increased the size of the op far beyond the initial plan. Part of that increase was to break up the mysterious sale, but the primary reason was to try and force Daisy to back off the potentially deadly situation. Actually bringing her in wasn’t his main concern, no matter what he’d told the teams - or the President, for that matter.

Any further contemplation was interrupted, as one agent after another reported sudden system failures. “We’ve lost contact with the ground teams,” the agent leading Mack’s back-end support said.

“ _All_ external comms are down!” a communications tech half-shouted in consternation, just before every hatch in Ops slammed shut, a rapidly receding series of muffled thumps immediately afterward indicated the same was happening all through the plane.

“Flight deck reports all systems are unrespons- I’ve just lost the flight deck,” a second tech chimed in a second later.

“Now all _on-board_ comms aren’t working,” the first tech added worriedly, fingers flying as he hunched over his keyboard.

Phil waited another few seconds, wondering when one of the many Communications agents would think to bring him up to speed. He was trying to decide which of the slightly-panicked techs was most likely to give him a proper sit-rep when one of them delivered some good news. “Internal security is still up, but it’s video only.” _For certain definitions of ‘good’_ , Coulson thought with a hidden grimace, then looked back at the tablet in his hand - just in time to watch May’s eyes go wide before the feed went black.

* * *

Natasha pursed her lips and frowned slightly as May hit the deck outside. _Melinda must be getting soft; nobody should be able to get the drop on her like that, even a guy who can shrink to the size of a -_

“Tic Tac?!” Sam’s incredulous exclamation made Romanoff roll her eyes before glancing his way. She nearly snorted in amusement when she realized that he, Steve, and Clint were still frozen in shock - although that wouldn’t last once Rogers noticed the hacker reaching under the lightweight cotton button-down he wore over one of his absurdly tight tees.

“What’re you -” Steve started when he finally noticed the small hand groping at his lower back; a second later he was frowning in confusion as the brunette retrieved a white-cased StarkPhone. “That’s not my phone,” the super-soldier muttered - needlessly stating the obvious in Natasha’s opinion.

May’s student ignored both remarks, thumbs flying across the device’s screen. “Took you long enough, Lang,” the girl groused without looking up.

“You were right about the guards - these guys are good!” Scott practically gushed. “Even with the shortest delay setting they both managed to almost make it clear of the cloud,” he rambled, waving a hand - the one not holding one of those strange pistols - at the open hatch.

Something he said finally got the hacker’s attention; she looked up from the phone and fixed Lang with a glare. “Then they might not be out long enough. Go back out there, hit ’em again. One shot each, then get started on the jet,” she ordered quickly, then returned her focus to the screen.

Natasha took a moment to check on her teammates again. The boys were still gaping at the sudden change in circumstances; Wanda was standing slightly apart, gaze drifting along the overhead and seemingly oblivious to the activity around her. Before the spy could even begin to guess at what Maximoff was doing, the Sokovian took a quick step backwards to clear the hatch at her end of the pod - which immediately hissed open.

 _Both_ doors were open, actually, and the hacker stalked out of the chamber, striding through the space Wanda had occupied a bare second earlier. Once outside, she glanced back into the pod and frowned. “Barton, head for the cockpit and start preflight; Rogers, Wilson, go get the sentries after Lang ICEs them - put them in the pod,” the rogue agent ordered, pointing at the deck where the Avengers were standing.

Two seconds later, the trio were still staring blankly at her. “Move!” she barked, sending the guys scrambling out the opposite end of the containment unit. Natasha felt her lips twitch at that reaction, but kept her face blank as Steve’s hacker turned her attention to the other two Avengers present.

“You two, get that container loose,” she waved at the crate that had been removed from the quinjet a few minutes earlier. “We’ll get Rogers to carry it aboard,” she added with a smirk.

Deciding to play along, Romanoff moved to comply, only to stop as Wanda placed a hand on her bicep. “I have it, Natasha,” the Sokovian told her quietly, then waved her free hand at the container. Every strap released simultaneously, the crate itself lifted a few inches off the deck on a scarlet cushion, then floated in the direction of the waiting parasite aircraft.

Natasha watched it go for a heartbeat, then turned and quirked an eyebrow at the hacker, who snorted softly before kneeling next to Melinda’s unconscious body. “Give me a hand with May,” she requested softly, carefully examining the agent for injury. Moving into position to lift Melinda’s legs, Nat noted the almost-gentle way the young woman treated her former teammate.

“I’m almost embarrassed it took me so long to peg who trained you,” Romanoff said quietly, getting the brunette’s attention as she bent to grasp May’s ankles. “Never would have guessed that Fury would’ve been able to get the Cavalry back in the field, even as a specialist to guard-dog his little side project,” she remarked casually, hoping the hacker would give up a clue to the Bus team’s agent in charge.

She didn’t count on the reaction to the nickname. “Don’t call her that,” the kid practically growled, fixing Natasha with a flat stare. When the spy didn’t react after a few seconds, the girl blinked, then hooked her hands under May’s arms. “Anyway,” she said lightly as the two of them lifted the unconscious woman, “May wasn’t our specialist. She flew the Bus.”

That revelation caused a bit of a traffic jam, as Sam - who’d dragooned Lang into helping carry one of the sentries - stopped in the pod’s doorway. “Wait a second! You’re telling me that _she’s_ the ‘admin desk jockey’ Steve told me about?” he asked, looking to Natasha.

“According to my source, yes,” Romanoff agreed.

“Jeez, I hope HR was a separate section,” Lang chimed in. When he saw the blank stares his apparent non-sequitur caused, the thief elaborated: “I mean, I’d be too terrified to ask about dental plans.”

Before any of his flabbergasted listeners could respond, a polite cough drew attention to where Steve was waiting, second sentry slung in a fireman’s carry, to get into the pod. The super-soldier’s return prodded everybody back into motion, and in very short order the three agents were arranged inside the chamber.

That done, the hacker turned to Lang. “You should get started,” she told him with a jerk of her head to indicate the waiting airplane, then turned to face Steve, Sam, and Natasha as Scott hurried up the ramp. Wanda hadn’t followed the container aboard, and chose that moment to rejoin her teammates, receiving a welcoming nod from the Inhuman as she approached. “It won’t be long before the agents up in Ops regain control, so we have to get moving. Go ahead and board, make sure everything is strapped down so we can take off ASAP,” the young woman told the Avengers, before heading for the cargo bay’s forward bulkhead.

Natasha glanced at her teammates to get their reactions: Wanda just nodded slightly, obviously waiting for the others to head for the jet; Sam was looking to Steve for _his_ reaction; Steve was ... wearing his stubborn face. Natasha suppressed a sigh, wondering why Rogers seemed to have a problem with getting out of here.

The hacker glanced back over her shoulder as she worked to open an access panel in the bulkhead, doing a double-take when she saw the four Avengers hadn’t moved. She finished unlatching the panel, then turned to address them. “Seriously?” she half-shouted from her place near the wall. “We’re gonna do this again, Rogers?”

“You attacked us, Skye. Knocked us out, got us tossed in a cell - now you expect us to trust you?” Steve countered, voice carrying easily despite its flat tone.

The girl glared at Rogers, jaw tight and hands clenched into fists. After a seemingly eternal thirty seconds, she let out an explosive sigh and appeared to hunch slightly. “Whatever. I don’t have time for this,” she said, barely loud enough for Natasha to understand. “I’m going to manually release the docking clamps,” she hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “When I get done you’d better be on the plane or in the pod.” Rogers opened his mouth - maybe to protest, maybe to ask a question - only to have the hacker explain. “There’s a good chance this hold will depressurize when we take off.” She didn’t wait around for any further response, simply spun on her heel and crawled into the access-way.

For a handful of heartbeats, nobody moved, just stared at the hole in the wall where the kid disappeared. Natasha was about to suggest they play along, when Wanda broke the silence.

“I will _not_ go back to the Raft,” she said firmly, locking eyes with Rogers. “You may stay if you wish, Captain - perhaps I shall be able to convince Agent Johnson to help free you.” She half-glared at him for another beat, met Sam and Natasha’s eyes briefly, then turned and strode up the ramp.

Sam looked back and forth between Steve and Natasha, eyebrow raised in silent question. Natasha mirrored the gesture, then shrugged minutely and turned to follow Wanda, hoping Rogers wouldn’t be stubborn enough to stay behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinda short this time, sorry.
> 
> Was supposed to be the Rest of the Story, but the Avengers keep coming up with questions for Daisy so it's not done yet. Posted the _Zephyr_ section alone so as to not break schedule.


	10. Parting

### A New Mission

“Listen up back there,” Barton’s voice suddenly blared over the bulkhead-mounted speakers. “We’ll be taking off in just a bit, but seeing as I’ve never lifted a quinjet from the back of another, bigger, jet, and considering our trigger-happy hacker friend just told me that she’s never done it both solo _and_ on manual, this could get a little bumpy. So strap in, hold tight, and get ready,” the archer finished as the quinjet’s powerful engines spun up rapidly, filling the cargo area with sound.

Steve tightened his seat restraints, then checked the rest of the compartment. Wanda and Natasha had been strapped in and waiting since they’d finished securing the crate - nearly five minutes now. Scott had been working at various access panels around the jet, until Clint’s warning set him scrambling to secure his tools; now he plopped down next to Sam, who immediately helped the ex-con sort out the belts and latches.

Wilson got Lang secured just seconds before the airplane seemed to leap a few yards straight up, leaving Rogers’ stomach behind. Next came a burst of forward acceleration, then a high-gee starboard bank that Steve _knew_ would have had his pre-serum self scrambling for a bucket - and did leave Scott more than a little green. The plane quickly steadied out, accelerating hard in an obvious bid to get clear of the _Zephyr_. Steve heard the speakers go live a few seconds later; he wondered what Barton had to say this time.

“Lang, did you get finished before we separated?” Daisy, not Clint, asked the compartment at large.

“Not quite,” Scott replied a bit shakily. “I was working on the last one before Hawkeye decided to play fighter pilot,” he continued, voice strengthening along the way.

“Get it done,” the hacker ordered tersely. Steve expected the speakers to power down, then, but after a beat Daisy spoke up again. “Cloaking and active stealth are useless if that third tracker is still up,” she explained, ostensibly to Lang but filling in the also-listening Avengers.

Scott took a second to get loose of the straps, muttering about redundancy and paranoia as he got up and collected his tools. Daisy’s voice filled the cargo area a third time, “Barton’s on the stick until I make sure the remote piloting part of the autopilot is disabled; I trust his fellow Avengers know whether or not it’s safe to unstrap.” Steve had just opened his mouth to ask where they were headed when the speakers’ electronic hum died.

He hit the quick-release on the restraints holding him in his seat, then stood quickly and took a step toward the cockpit before he made himself stop. Daisy didn’t need his questions distracting her while she worked. Instead he turned back to the others. Scott was working too, access panel opened wide, so Steve’s gaze moved on. Wanda had removed her straps, but remained seated. Natasha knew Clint better than anyone else here, and she _hadn’t_ unbuckled - was in fact double-checking the anchor points. Sam had started to follow Steve’s example, half-rising from his seat, but was obviously reconsidering after seeing Natasha’s reaction.

For the next ten minutes, the only sounds came from Lang - mostly muttered curses on the subject of paranoiacs whenever he had to consult the schematics on his tablet. The Avengers tuned him out, each lost in his or her own thoughts, so when all eyes were drawn to Scott’s sudden exclamation of “Ha! Finally!” they were surprised to find Daisy beyond him, silently leaning against the cockpit hatchway.

Her gaze swept the area, making eye contact with each of the Avengers - and Lang - before she spoke up. “Now that we’re - probably - in the clear, I guess I ought to tell you what you stumbled into.” She fell silent, calmly watching Steve, waiting for a response. For his part, Rogers just stared back, part of him still protesting the notion of trusting the hacker after all that had happened today.

Neither was sure how long they’d been standing there, half-glaring at one another, when Scott awkwardly cleared his throat. “Yeah, since I already know - generally speaking,” he amended at Daisy’s frown, “- what the plan was, I’ll just ...” he waved at the cockpit, “go ... babysit the autopilot. Or something.”

The others watched him beat a hasty retreat, Daisy biting her lip in thought; when he’d passed through the hatch, she offered up a concession to Steve’s paranoia. “You want somebody to stay with him, make sure he’s not changing any settings on the autopilot?” She glanced around at the group nervously before adding, “Maybe somebody with flight experience? I’m not sure _I_ trust him not to hit the wrong button by accident ...”

“I’ll sit with him,” Sam volunteered immediately. “We can catch up a bit,” he explained easily as he moved to follow Lang. Steve watched him go, opened his mouth to ask- “I’ll send Barton back here,” Wilson tossed over his shoulder just before stepping through the hatch.

Another minute passed in tense silence before Clint emerged from the cockpit. “Had to set it up so they can hear us on speaker,” he said, jerking his thumb over one shoulder before he crossed to sit next to Wanda.

Daisy looked around the group once more, then took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, putting on an obviously little-used ‘debrief mode’. “First I’d like to apologize Ms. Maximoff,” she started, only to be interrupted by the lady in question.

“Please, Agent Johnson, call me Wanda.”

“Not really an agent,” the hacker replied with a tiny smile, “not anymore.” Wanda returned the smile for a beat before Daisy resumed. “I want to apologize for ... you know, knocking you out and tying you down. With the Falcon in the square in _front_ of me, I just assumed the person sneaking up _behind_ me was this wall of muscle,” she rolled her eyes at Wanda and pointed at Steve.

“The kick was supposed to be a friendly reminder not to underestimate anybody; it was too late to stop it by the time I recognized who was really back there.” Daisy paused a moment, looking away in embarrassment before she continued. “I’d just attacked the Scarlet Witch, so of course I sort of ... panicked.”

“Awfully effective sort of panic,” Natasha challenged mildly. “You only fired twice - both shots scored knockouts.”

Daisy snorted softly, “I guess training kicked in; I sure don’t remember deciding to duck Wilson’s attack.” She seemed to get distracted for a moment, mind elsewhere, then shook it off and moved on. “I should probably apologize to you, too,” she told Natasha - who only quirked an eyebrow in response. “Last report I read had you still working with the U.N. - around seventy-thirty probability,” she added, rocking one hand back and forth. “When you said we’d wait for your team, well ...” she trailed off, then cleared her throat. “I needed the ATCU. Not the U.N.”

Natasha only nodded slowly, seemingly accepting that explanation before pinning the hacker with a sharp look. “So why were you holding back in the fight?”

Daisy simply gazed back, studying Natasha as if she weren’t one of the deadliest people on the planet. The silence stretched on so long that Steve was considering chiming in with his own question, but eventually the hacker _smirked_. “Probably the same reason you were.” Romanoff only cocked her head, inviting elaboration. “Like I said, with Wilson in town, Rogers had to be close - I was killing time.” Daisy suddenly grinned mischievously. “Also, how could I pass up the chance to spar with the infamous _Agent Romanoff_?”

Steve briefly wondered at the strange emphasis she’d used, then shook it off as irrelevant. “If you were waiting for me to show up, then why -”

“Why’d I blast you halfway across the square?” she interrupted, looking at him as if he’d just complained about the sun rising in the east. “Maybe I didn’t feel like letting Captain America hit me with a flying tackle,” Daisy continued testily, then transferred the semi-glare to Natasha. “Especially since the Black Widow had just tried to twist my head off with her thighs.”

Steve started to stammer out an apology, while Natasha simply shrugged; Daisy only waved both off, take a deep breath before getting back on track.

“Anyway, that’s when I figured the U.N. wouldn’t be a problem - today, at least. Then Lang spotted Barton, and I suddenly I had two unconscious Avengers and _three_ wide-awake, pissed-off Avengers complicating my bare-bones plan to get the ATCU to come after me.” She shook her head disgustedly, muttering under her breath.

Steve decided to ignore the rather colorful language she was utilizing - after all, she probably didn’t know he could hear it. “So you came up with a new plan,” he said instead, then snorted in amusement when he remembered what she’d said before she shot him. “Improvise, adapt, and overcome, right?” Daisy looked up at him suspiciously, then grinned briefly and nodded when she saw his smirk. Even though the grin faded quickly, Steve finally felt some of the tension he’d been carrying since he woke up flow out of him.

Then Clint spoke up, and Rogers’ muscles tightened right back up as the archer’s too-casual tone registered. “Okay, so Plan B required _five_ unconscious Avengers - for whatever reason. Still leaves a couple questions.”

“Shoot,” Daisy agreed warily.

“First, why didn’t I go splat after you nailed me with the - ICER, was it?” at her confirming nod, he added, “Nice shot, by the way.”

“You were right above me when I knocked you off your perch - the shot was dead simple,” she shrugged off the compliment, “and you didn’t hit the ground because I caught you,” the hacker stated simply. When Barton just blinked his surprise at her, she elaborated. “Couldn’t have one of my Trojan Avengers bloodied and broken; would have screwed with that Plan B you mentioned.”

Clint was gaping at Daisy, obviously trying to work out how the woman could have ‘caught’ him, so Steve stepped in to ask about a piece of the puzzle that was bothering him. “You never said what your objective was,” he pointed out, letting a hint of challenge creep into his tone. “Did Plan B get the job done before we all piled onto this plane?” _Or are you dragging us into something else?_

Daisy just stared at him for a few seconds, brow slowly furrowing. “Is he always this dense?” she asked the others, never looking away from Steve’s face. He felt his own brow come down in confusion, then Clint’s amused snort and Wanda’s soft laughter quickly added red-faced embarrassment, but the super-soldier just glared at the hacker, waiting for an answer. She gazed at him for another handful of seconds, then rolled her eyes. “The quinjet _is_ the objective. And while we’re not in the clear _yet_ , it’s looking pretty good.”

 _Oh. Yeah, that makes sense._ He felt his face go slack while - somehow - blaze even hotter as he realized that he’d missed the implications of Lang being prepared to modify the jet’s systems. Rogers forced himself to mentally rundown the day’s events, trying to spot any other discrepancies he should have caught.

Natasha’s reentry into the conversation dragged him up out of his thoughts. “Why do you need a quinjet?” she asked, voice that careful tone of disinterested that Steve recognized from many an interrogation.

“Because beat-up old panel vans are too damn slow,” Daisy replied grimly, all traces of mirth evaporating. She seemed to get lost in thought for a moment before explaining further. “The ATCU can locate where I use my powers, so I thought I’d have to keep my head down to stay off their radar. But after I helped Cap with his U.N. problem _without_ any shaking or shockwaves, I went looking for other people who might need a hand,” she finished softly, eyes on the deck.

“Steven told us you are attempting to help other Inhumans?” Wanda asked gently when Daisy’s pause turned into more of a full stop.

“Yeah,” the hacker agreed. “The Watchdogs are a particularly nasty threat to new Inhumans, so I’d been keeping an eye on their online chatter. About a week after we parted ways,” she nodded at Steve, “I got a hit on a cell that thought they’d found themselves a target.” Her voice had gone flat, and she stopped to take a deep breath before continuing.

“Rural Oregon, so a few hours from where I’d gone to ground. I meant to get ahead of the Watchdogs, find their target and get gone.” She was back to staring at the deck between her feet. “I was too late.”

Nobody said anything, long seconds dragging past as Daisy glared at nothing, hands repeatedly clenching into fists. Eventually she blinked and glanced around, then continued her story. “Got out of town ahead of the ATCU, started working on this op a couple days later.” She hooked a thumb at the cockpit, “Contacted Lang, faked up some intel to get the _Zephyr_ deployed where I wanted it. Just had to plant the flash drive on the assholes from Oregon.”

“The four dead in that collapsed building - the Watchdogs?” Steve asked, putting the pieces together on his own this time. Daisy nodded warily in confirmation. “Did the plan require them to die, or was that just vengeance?” he asked flatly, trying not to let disappointment color his voice.

“The _plan_ was to take them down and leave a nice little gift-wrapped package for the ATCU, but the Watchdogs had been busy. They were holding an Inhuman prisoner, torturing him. Things got ... a little out of hand,” she finished lamely, eyes watching warily for Steve’s reaction.

He could feel his expression slipping into what Tony half-jokingly called ‘Disappointed Face’, and tried to get it under control before -

“Ops turn,” Natasha said suddenly, shattering the tense silence. “Happened to all of us, working for SHIELD.”

“Today’s fiasco, too,” Clint agreed, grinning when everybody turned his way. “Though it’s a good thing you brought that knock-out pistol along this time,” he smirked.

“Of course I brought an ICER,” Daisy shot back. “I had to put up a believable fight before ‘surrendering’ to the ATCU - _without_ causing any permanent damage to their agents.”

“You do that very well,” Natasha said approvingly. “Even now, you maintain the fiction that the ATCU is anything more than a cover for SHIELD.”

The non-sequitur caught the hacker by surprise. “I don’t -” Daisy started, stopped. “What are you -” she tried again, eyes widening slightly. Steve felt his expression slipping again, and he covered his incipient grin with one hand when he realized Clint and Nat had thrown together an impromptu interrogation without so much as a whisper between them.

“S’okay,” Barton consoled Daisy. “Nat even got Loki to spill the beans. Besides,” he added with his own smirk, “the giant SHIELD eagle painted on top of that black monster you call the _Zephyr_ was a dead giveaway.”

“I was only looking for confirmation,” Romanoff protested with what had to be a fake pout. “May being involved gave the game away; however Fury got her out of Admin, she’d rather retire than work for another agency.”

Daisy’s eyes had only gotten wider as her head turned back and forth, following the ex-assassins’ banter. “Holy shit,” she murmured, quietly enough that Steve politely pretended not to hear. “No wonder FitzSimmons sounded awestruck when they told me stories about _Agent Romanoff_.”

Steve ignored Clint’s indignant protests, considering how to ask about this Fitzsimmons person Daisy kept referring to, when their little chat was interrupted.

“Um, if you can hear me back there, we’ve only got five hours until our ride leaves the rendezvous, Sk- Agent. Agent Skye ... Johnson? I’ll shut up now,” Lang rambled over the intercom, too-loud voice rattling the flush-mounted bulkhead speakers.

Daisy only rolled her eyes, then stood and looked around at the Avengers. “You guys should decide where you want us to drop you. I’d prefer somewhere near the west coast so Scott and I don’t miss our ride.” She started for the cockpit, then paused and looked back over her shoulder. “I’ll send Wilson back so you can talk privately, and echo the flight data back here so Barton can make sure you’re not being double-crossed,” she pointed at one of the flat screen displays mounted the port bulkhead. “Let me know as soon as you decide,” she finished with a small nod, then turned and slipped silently through the cockpit hatch.

* * *

Steve studied the dense tangle of branches above him, wondering if they would be enough to prevent an infrared sensor from picking up his team. Clint had immediately suggested these coordinates, then gave them to Daisy after nobody raised any objections. Between the two of them, archer and hacker had managed to set the quinjet down in a tiny clearing, virtually underneath the boughs of the surrounding trees here on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. Eventually Rogers gave up trying to calculate infrared signatures, and looked back toward the clearing, then shook his head in amusement at the sight of the quinjet’s cargo bay seemingly floating unsupported a few feet off the ground.

He glanced around, wondering if Natasha had come back yet; she’d vanished into the trees the second they’d hit dirt. Wanda was sitting with her back to the trunk of a nearby tree, quietly watching the people aboard the jet.

Near the ramp, Sam and Clint had retrieved their respective equipment from the cargo crate and were now arguing quietly, both men frequently gesturing to the open container between them. Daisy and Scott were further inside, heads together, the ex-con pointing out something on a tablet.

Steve gazed at the unlikely pair who’d planned and executed this crazy operation, not really seeing them. He idly wondered why Lang had agreed to help the rogue agent, but quickly gave up on that line of thought; Rogers still wasn’t sure why the man had helped them in Germany, there was no telling why he got involved here.

Daisy on the other hand ... Steve thought maybe he was beginning to understand why she might do something like this. She had the skills to support herself at any number of jobs - legal or illegal. Yet even now, separated from home and friends, Daisy was putting herself on the line to protect people she’d never even met; that much, at least, Steve Rogers could understand.

Either he was more distracted by his musings than he’d thought, or Wanda had gotten much better at moving silently; Steve didn’t notice her standing beside him until she spoke up. “They will need to leave soon,” she stated simply, her own gaze focused inside the jet.

“So will we,” he countered. “Not much longer till it’s too dark to move around safely out here.”

Wanda grabbed his elbow and started forward, tugging at him until he moved with her toward the quinjet. “Come, I wish to speak with Daisy before she goes.”

They were still a few yards away when Daisy noticed them coming. She broke off her discussion with Lang, then both moved back toward the ramp, arriving at the top just as Steve and Wanda reached the foot. To their left Sam and Clint were still arguing; Wilson wanted to bring their phones, but Barton thought there was too much chance SHIELD had compromised the devices.

“There’s no way SHIELD can track those,” Daisy told them with a smirk, then waited until the former airman was just about to start gloating before continuing, “I bricked ’em all before I handed them over back in Kansas.” She shrugged slightly, “You’ll have to get new phones if you want to use my toolkit again.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Clint said evenly, leaving Steve to wonder if the archer had appropriate devices stashed nearby.

“Now, don’t take this the wrong way,” Sam told Daisy placatingly, “but I’m probably still gonna call it SkyeNet.” The hacker in question grimaced slightly, and Steve suppressed a groan.

“I wish you wouldn’t call it that,” he muttered yet again, only to have Wilson grin at him when Daisy’s grimace turned into a smirk. Steve braced himself for the inevitable questions that followed whenever somebody new found out he’d seen those movies, but the hacker’s smirk had already faded.

Now that he was closer, Rogers could tell that Daisy and Scott were both standing a bit stiffly, tension evident in even the smallest movements. “Is everything okay?” he asked her levelly, watching closely for a reaction.

The Inhuman seemed to stiffen further, but it was Lang who responded first. “Just a little snag - it looks like we’ll have to do a lot more work than we planned before she can use the plane. At least, without tipping off SHIELD.”

Steve nodded slightly, acknowledging what Scott had said, but never took his eyes off Daisy. Of all the time he’d spent in her company - _barely half a day, now that I think about it_ \- Rogers hadn’t seen her like this. Angry, impatient; yeah, sure. But even evading the U.N., fighting an unplanned battle with the Avengers, or stealing a quinjet from within SHIELD custody, she didn’t seem this ... _worried_.

 _Oh._ Steve’s eyes widened slightly at that realization, but he kept his face carefully blank as he put the pieces together. _The extra time in refit means there’s a bigger window when she won’t be available to help Inhumans deal with the Watchdogs and their ilk._ Daisy’s gaze suddenly snapped back into focus, and the new determination he read in the set of her mouth knocked whatever he’d been about to say right out of his head.

Thankfully, Wanda chose that moment to speak up, drawing the rogue agent’s attention. “Daisy, could I speak with you for a moment?” the Sokovian asked casually, then swept her gaze around the others standing nearby before adding, “Privately, perhaps?”

“Sure; we can use the cockpit,” Daisy replied quickly, obviously welcoming a distraction. Steve watched the two women as they moved further into the jet. When they’d disappeared behind the closed hatch, he let his eyes unfocus, tuning out the chatter around him as he methodically considered the idea he’d almost blurted out a moment ago.

Natasha’s sudden reappearance pulled his attention back to the situation at hand; he wanted to hear what she’d found.

“The immediate area’s clear,” she started once Rogers was paying attention. “The shortest route to Clint’s hide looks clean, too.” Romanoff paused to look up the ramp; he had heard the cockpit hatch open so he knew she was watching the other two women. “Even taking it slow, we should be buttoned up in time for Steve to have some birthday cake,” she finished with a small smile, then cocked her head to one side and added: “Well, birthday ration bars, anyway.”

“Rations and rest sounds like a good birthday to me,” Daisy commented lightly as she and Wanda rejoined the group. “Beats the hell out of the take-out and pre-mission jitters I got.”

“When was this?” Sam asked curiously, getting in just ahead of Clint.

“Yesterday,” the hacker replied blandly, then snorted amusement. “Feels like a _lot_ longer, though.”

“Well, happy belated birthday!” Clint exclaimed with a grin, while Wanda slid an arm around Daisy to pull her into a hug. “You sure know how to throw a party.”

“Thanks,” Daisy said quietly, obviously uncomfortable with the subject.

A part of Steve was seized by an impulse to ask what year she’d been born in - he couldn’t believe someone with her skill set could be as young as she looked - but he decided to steer the conversation back to operational matters. “I’ve been thinking about what Scott said - the extra work the plane needs; and why you need a quinjet in the first place.” He paused a moment, then looked Daisy straight in the eye.

“I’d be honored if you would let me help you protect people from hate groups like the Watchdogs,” he told her softly. He could see the automatic refusal on her face, but before she could say anything, he clarified. “At least until you get this bird back in service.”

Steve could tell Daisy had quickly moved past the instinctive rejection; he could practically see the gears turning behind her eyes as she asked “How would that work?”

“I’ll use your network to keep in touch - and beneath SHIELD’s notice. When you identify a probable target, I would attempt to intervene,” Steve replied slowly, patching a plan together as he spoke.

“I think you mean _we_ will intervene, Rogers,” Sam interjected. “You know you need me to keep you out of trouble,” the parajumper quipped in response to the look Steve shot him.

“There’s still the problem of a car possibly being too slow,” Daisy objected, picking at the offer despite the lessening tension in her shoulders.

“I could help you sift the intel,” Natasha offered. “Narrow down the possibilities earlier so you can pre-position these two; cut the response time some. Just have to let me access the raw take on your network.”

“Nat’s a pretty good analyst,” Clint allowed, slow smile spreading on his face. “But if you want another set of eyes on your data, well, there’s a reason they call me Hawkeye.” He deflated when the hacker only raised an eyebrow at him. “Okay, but seriously, I spent a good amount of time doing that sort of thing with SHIELD.”

“You were only assigned to Analysis while recovering from wounds,” Natasha scoffed. “Even that was just Phil keeping you from starting another prank war with May.” The spy gave Barton a flat look that Steve knew had sent hardened mercs running, but the archer only gazed back blandly.

 _Something going on there_ , Steve thought warily, making a note to ask the pair later.

Daisy was chewing her lower lip, eyes shifting between the four Avengers as she considered their offers. After an eternal thirty seconds, she blew out a sigh and let her shoulders slump in relief. “Okay. If four Avengers are going to help cover the extra downtime, I’m not dumb enough to turn that down,” she told them with a small smile.

Scott cleared his throat to get everybody’s attention. “We need to get moving, Daisy; our ride is waiting.”

“Right,” she nodded to him before meeting each of the Avengers’ gaze one last time. “We’ll talk again when you get back on the network,” Daisy told them firmly, then turned on her heel and headed into the jet without looking back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, sorry this one's so rough; a lot of it didn't get a handwritten first draft, so this has only had a basic read-through for obviously mismatched or missing words and tenses.
> 
> Anyway, that's the end of the Arcolin episode, just a (hopefully) short-ish epilogue to get that 11/11 up top.
> 
> Thanks so much to everybody who has left kudos or comments, or even just managed to slog through the dreck I keep trying to pass off as prose.


	11. Epilogue

### Curiosity

Hope van Dyne glanced at the time on her recently acquired burner smartphone, then sighed in frustration. She’d been sitting here under the makeshift roof of a roadside produce stand for the better part of two hours, and was seriously starting to regret leaving her actual phone behind, operational security be damned.

At least she wouldn’t be bored stiff.

She started to check the time again, then forced herself to stop; there was still time for Scott to get here before the next recon satellite was due to pass overhead. Hope stood up abruptly, pausing to stretch her lower back - that improvised stool wasn’t exactly comfortable - before starting to pace behind the ramshackle structure.

 _God, this is so boring_ , she told herself firmly, and tried to ignore the tart self-reply: _Then why are you here instead of Luis?_

Hope didn’t get a chance to examine that thought, however, because she slowly became aware of a faint whine approaching from the northeast. She stopped walking and looked toward the sound, searching for any sign of the stolen aircraft she was here to meet.

The muffled whine passed near overhead, with a slight distortion of the starry sky above; a handful of seconds later she heard a slight thump. The active camouflage shut off to reveal the plane already on the ground, cargo ramp descending. Hope tried to maintain a stern expression as she called out, “You’re running late - only forty minutes left in Kurt’s window,” but the sight of Skye shoving Scott along the length of the troop bay made not smiling a challenge.

“Out! Get off my bird!” the hacker shouted, giving Lang one last push down the ramp before slapping a control on the entryway, then following him to the ground. “How do you put up with him?” she asked Hope plaintively as the ramp started rising behind her. “Gimme a six-hour flight with Steve Rogers glowering at me over another ninety minutes with ... _him_ ,” she groused.

“He’s an acquired taste,” Hope allowed with a small smile.

“Whatever,” Skye said, nose wrinkled in distaste, then glanced around the area. “You have the case?” she asked Hope.

“Right over there,” the scientist hooked a thumb at her erstwhile stool. “Got the customized reducer, too,” she added, producing a small hard-sided case from her pocket.

“Use it, then, and let’s get the hell out of here,” Skye responded as she moved to collect the RF-shielded container that would soon carry an extremely detailed ‘model SHIELD quinjet’.

* * *

Natasha lightly thumped Clint on the back, trying to help him cough up the mouthful of protein bar-and-water he was choking on. “Really, Rogers?” she asked, giving Steve an unimpressed look.

The super-soldier flushed slightly and looked away, stammering out an explanation. “It’s just, when Agent May mentioned the explosive arrowhead, she was _really_ -”

“Pissed?” Barton rasped out a suggestion.

“-angry,” Steve finished, shooting his own look at the archer.

“Melinda can be extremely protective,” Nat allowed, “but that doesn’t make the girl her daughter.” She could tell Rogers was skeptical.

“Are you s-”

“I’m sure. May never had kids,” Romanoff interrupted firmly, then cocked her head and looked up at him. “Weren’t you about to check the perimeter?” she asked, putting a faint threating undertone in the playful sing-song of the question.

Steve beat a hasty retreat from that ambiguity, and Clint watched him go while sipping at his water bottle. When they were alone again he cocked an eyebrow at his partner. “Are we _positive_ Daisy isn’t Mel’s kid? She sure does scary like a May.” He suppressed a shudder, remembering the time he’d run into Lian May while setting up one of his pranks in Melinda’s bunk at the Hub.

“Melinda is Daisy’s _mentor_ , not her mother,” Nat rolled her eyes at him; after a beat she added in a thoughtful tone, “But not, I think, her only teacher.”

“What makes you say that?” Barton asked curiously. Nat’s logic chains were always interesting, and her conclusions rarely missed the mark by much.

“Daisy showed more tactical flexibility than Melinda would have,” she stated simply.

“That’s not fair; Mel improvises all the time,” he countered, defending his one-time pranking partner in crime.

“True, but her adjustments are usually conservative - without somebody else to push the mission, she’ll default to protection. In Daisy’s place, Melinda would have aborted the quinjet op and found a way to get us all clear before we could be picked up.”

Clint took another bite of his ration bar, chewing on that along with Natasha’s argument. Eventually he nodded, washing the cardboard flavored lump down with a gulp from the water bottle. “Alright, I’ll buy that,” he said slowly, then looked his friend right in the eye before continuing. “Why are you so focused on Daisy’s possible second teacher?”

“Because May is _still_ the only person from Fury’s little side project that I can put a name to - though from what we heard on the _Zephyr_ FitzSimmons is one or both of the scientists. The agent in charge and the assigned specialist are both black holes.”

“So what are you planning?”

She bared her teeth in a vague approximation of a smile. “Asking Nick is obviously pointless, and I doubt Stark would let me access his archive of the SHIELD files I dumped after Insight, so I’ll have to fall back on ... older contacts.”

“Well, watch your back, okay? And let me know when you find your mystery man; you’ve got me all curious now.”

* * *

“Let me know what you find,” Coulson ordered abruptly, cutting Fitz off when he saw his office door open out of the corner of his eye. A small smile of apology for the rudeness, a quick tap of the control to cut to link, and Phil turned his attention to his visitor. “FitzSimmons are taking some techs to the last location we picked up a trace of the quinjet,” he told May tiredly.

“Send Bravo team along - for security,” she clarified at his puzzled frown.

“Why Bravo?” he asked curiously, tapping an appropriate order into his tablet.

“Alpha and Charlie are occupied,” May told him flatly.

Phil almost winced at the nearly emotionless response, but schooled his features to bland neutrality as he casually asked: “How are you doing?”

“Not the first time I’ve been hit with an ICER,” she replied, the slight edge in her voice reminding him that the _first_ time was his doing.

With a slight nod to acknowledge that unspoken point, Phil pressed on. “Not what I meant, Melinda.”

She glared at him, but as she hadn’t stormed out yet he just waited patiently.

“Conflicted,” May finally admitted, biting off the single word as if it had slipped out.

Coulson kept his mouth shut, waited some more.

“She knocked me out and stole a plane, Phil.”

“True, but I don’t see how that gets us to ‘conflicted’,” he prodded when she stopped speaking.

“She also captured the Avengers,” May stated, her monotone slipping slightly.

“You don’t think it could have been a setup? An act?” Coulson asked curiously.

“No; Nat and Clint were impressed.” May’s carefully maintained mask cracked a bit, corners of her mouth twitching upwards as she continued: “Rogers was pissed.”

Phil couldn’t stop the pained expression that flashed across his face. “Now _I’m_ conflicted,” he griped with a frown. After a few seconds lost in his own thoughts, he noticed Melinda smirking at him. “Don’t gloat, May,” he told her sourly.

She raised a questioning eyebrow at him, and let the smirk widen - slightly.

“Your protégé just executed a successful operation _against_ SHIELD, while fighting, defeating, and _capturing_ five Avengers - including my childhood hero,” he explained with a weary smile.

Melinda only smiled back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rewrote the safehouse section a half-dozen times; posted as-is just to _finish_ this thing.
> 
> Thanks again to everybody who has followed along with my horrible once-a-week posting schedule; some of the chapter breaks were a _leetle_ too cliffhanger-y for that kind of thing.


End file.
